


High Rollers

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Card Games, Drama, Gambling, Illegal Activities, M/M, Minor Violence, Past Relationship(s), Poker, Poker Nights, Psychological Drama, Revenge, Thriller, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2020-10-09 05:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: Let's lose ourselves in gambling.





	1. Poker Face

**Author's Note:**

> Hours of watching PokerStars later... Forgive any inaccuracies.

Minho is in the basement level of a nightclub named _ King Of Hearts _. All the glitz and glam of upstairs can’t trickle this far down, it seems. The interior is bare bones. Just black-painted walls and red velvet curtains and a strict no-phone policy. The heavy-set bouncer at the top of the stairs takes them. Down here, there’s a handful of tables. A handful of games. A handful of society’s rich, famous or rich and famous. Definitely not legal considering South Korean gambling laws but life’s not fun without the breaking of a few rules. The bouncer at the last set of swinging doors steps out of Minho’s way when he approaches. Minho’s spine sags with relief. He unclenches the bribe money that is in his jacket pocket as he pushes the door open with his shoulder.

Minho can’t call it a casino. It’s more of a ‘game room.’ Not too different from back home in the private upstairs room of his family’s fried chicken restaurant where the neighborhood aunties bet surprisingly high on mahjong games. The scale is totally different, he knows. Not just in terms of the size of the room but there’s also no comparing the amount of money exchanging hands here. But the _ feeling _ is the same. The atmosphere is... similar. Familiar.

It comes mighty close to feeling like home.

“Complacency is the devil,” Minho tells himself. If he feels at home, he puts his guard down. If he puts his guard down, he invites the wolves here to sink their fangs into his neck. He straightens his back. He tugs the collar of his denim jacket a little more snuggly around his throat. “Let’s do this,” he mumbles, and then marches farther into the room.

Minho walks past a mirrored column and catches sight of his reflection. A burn scar from a childhood incident wrinkles and reddens the left side of his face but, if one squints, there’s still a salvageable amount of handsomeness underneath it all.

The game room is surprisingly quiet after coming from the club upstairs. Down here there’s just the 808 bass of distant hip-hop, the clinking of drink glasses, the shuffling of cards, the low murmur of voices. The room is sparsely lit: unnecessarily bright white light over the game tables; unnecessarily dramatic shadows over the seating booths along the walls.

The person Minho’s after is here. Somewhere. Or so he’s been told. He just has to look.

So he starts to.

There’s a couple making out in one of the booths. Some poor sap in a blue linen shirt begs a woman in snake skin heels for “just a little more cash.” A mustached man clips the end of a cigar and lights it while propped up against a No Smoking poster.

None of their faces are familiar so Minho keeps searching.

A waiter carries a silver tray of champagne glasses past him, notices his empty hands, stops and then turns to face him. As politely as he could manage, he _ strongly suggests _ Minho visits the bookkeeper and points off to the left.

Hating that he feels and probably already looks out of place here, Minho scurries in the indicated direction.

There’s a woman with graying hair behind a plexi-glass window who jots down his name and confiscates his license as collateral ‘just in case.’ Then she takes the fat band of cash he shoves through a slot near the bottom of the window, counts it out in what feels like milliseconds and then takes a moment to dispense him a hearty handful of colorful playing chips. Their denominations smile up at him in thick, black ink. The numbers remind him of how much money he stands to lose tonight. He ignores the burning sensation in his upper chest that tells him he’s making a big mistake, scoops up the chips and carries them with him across the room.

“Shit,” he breathes out. “What am I doing here? What am I _ doing _ here?”

No. A reason exists. This life is a game and it is his turn.

Brand new confidence fuels his steps.

On the opposite end of the plushly-carpeted space is the bar, every stool occupied by people both in casual streetwear and in designer fashions. It is a clashing of worlds here. Despite outward appearances, everyone here is a millionaire. Everyone here _ has _ to be a millionaire, or damn close to being one, with stakes this high. 

Minho checks the tables at a glance and spots a dice game, two different card games, a roulette wheel. Just the basics. 

It’s all he needs.

Ignoring the roulette table completely, he pushes on.

A group of young men settles at a poker table when Minho walks up. His initial plan is to spectate for a few hands and maybe move down to the dice game where he’s far more comfortable, but seeing as he’s caught the table right as they’re gearing up for a fresh hand, he tries his luck. Minho sits down in the last available seat. The players aren’t very talkative. In their defense, it’s only been a hand or two and they’re all still taking sidelong glances at each other. Assessing each other. Minho does his fair share of assessing, too. None of the men are who he’s looking for so he’s tempted to stand before he’s dealt in but common sense nags at him, tells him it’ll be less suspicious if he plays around the room first instead of heading straight to his prey.

“Good evening,” Minho attempts.

No one except the dealer glances in his direction.

Minho rolls his eyes, “Okay then.” He calms himself. This isn’t like the games he’s played back home. These aren’t friendly neighbors he’s up against who will shave a few thousand off his gambling debts if he does a few chores for them, a few nights of babysitting or a few mornings of dog walking. He now sits at a table with pros and they probably couldn’t care less about greetings. Back home, matches last for hours, hands drag on for minutes, and turns get forgotten, because everyone is so busy telling stories, laughing at jokes or getting in quick bites of dinner.

Here is all business. Here, everyone’s interest lies solely in big bucks exchanging hands.

Minho glances over to his left.

The dealer is small, dainty, thin, but her movements as she shuffles the deck are fluid and strong and confident. She smiles up at Minho in a way that he can’t quite tell is flirtatious or part of her job. Minho guesses it’s part of the job. It hurts a bit because she’s just his type. He is positive that the partially unbuttoned shirt and the hint of pastel purple bra strap he can see is not part of the uniform. Instead of returning her smile, though, Minho drops his stack of chips on the table and they make a musical _ plink-plink-plink _ sound.

The noise is what gets the attention of the player to his right: a dude with a stylish haircut in a tailor-made designer suit, jacket and all despite it being July. The thick muscles of his arms strain against the jacket at the elbows. His tie is loose and Minho can see the dampness of sweat across his chest. Poor guy. Management hasn’t thought to kick the AC up another notch and he’s probably too embarrassed about sweat stains to peel out of the jacket.

“Hey,” Minho attempts.

“Hey,” Suit says, already turning away. Too fast for Minho to get a good look at his face. The cologne he wears smells sour. Minho finds it hard to appreciate the scent.

The dealer finishes shuffling. She takes a moment to brush a loose lock of hair off of her eyelashes and then she deals. Swiftly. Expertly. The cards spin across the table and land precisely in front of the player’s hands.

Minho’s sitting on the far left of the table so the dealer cuts him in last but that’s how Minho can have the time to look at everyone’s initial reactions to their cards. Most of their poker faces are immaculate. However, one of the guys has shades on, thinking he’s hiding his reaction, but Minho sees the frustrated way his hand tenses up before he plays it off by twirling the silver ring on his middle finger. 

At last, the dealer swings Minho his second card. He lines them up. Smooth. Almost soft, he thinks as he feels the patterned backs of the cards under his fingertips. There’s no need to be afraid now. Luck is all that’s left. He swallows down his nerves like bitter medicine. Minho flips his thumb under the corners to spot the cards. He’s got a three of hearts. A ten of spades. He keeps his face blank as he pulls his hand back. Minho grabs a chip and flips it over and under his knuckles like his uncle taught him. It does not calm him but he now has a repetitive task to focus on.

There’s a guy on the far right of the table with a lopsided fedora sitting on his curly black hair, wearing an I LOVE BERLIN shirt and colorful shorts like he’s somebody’s grandpa. He sips from a glass in his hand before he slides two of his chips forward, the green ones, each one worth a million won.

Around the table they go. From right to left, calling. There’s a snarky-looking one. One in a dandy beret and a pink bow tie. The one in dark shades with the silver ring. Then Suit sitting next to Minho.

It is risky with absolutely nothing in his hand but Minho slides two chips forward. What’s the point of sitting at the table if he isn’t going to play?

Silence encroaches heavy around the table. The dealer makes a motion towards Shot Glass who braces the cool glass of his drink against his ruddy cheek before chucking another two chips forward. A bold raise when they haven’t seen the flop yet. The first thought Minho has is that Shot Glass has a pretty strong hand. A high-ranking pair, perhaps?

The others call his bluff:

Snarky hesitates but eventually calls, flattens his palm over two chips and pushes them forward. Beret confidently flicks two chips to the middle of the table, making them spin like ballerinas on the green. Shades more hesitantly, more gently, nudges his two forward. Suit slides his across the green like he’s pushing away an exorbitant restaurant bill he’s barely got the credit to cover.

Minho feels like he can get a good read on their personalities just from such subtle movements. 

He looks down and thinks about his hand. A three and a ten. Too far apart to bank on getting enough cards to bridge them but he knows it’ll be useless if he folds now. If there’s anything he’s learned as a child growing up with playing cards in his hand as opposed to markers and coloring books, it’s that folding before the flop is a bit of a cop-out. Respect is only earned around a table through risk. He won’t win if he won’t play. Minho halts the flipping of the chip around his fingers, grabs another from his stack and slides the two of them forward, bringing his total bet to 4 million won. The number is almost incomprehensible. Six months ago, hell, six _ weeks _ ago, this would have been more money than he would earn in a month at his old job. It feels both damning and freeing to toss that much aside in less than a blink.

The dealer scoops up the offered chips, slides them to the center of the table. Her graceful hands with nude-painted fingernails arrange the chips into neat stacks.

It’s Snarky, in a loudly-patterned silk button-up shirt, maroon deck shorts and boat shoes, who speaks first. “So… who are your parents?” It’s probably the closest to a greeting he’ll give them. “I’m talking to you, blondie.”

Kids spending mommy’s money. Who you are as an individual doesn’t really matter unless who your _ parents _ are as individuals matters. 

The bleached blonde dude in the beret and bowtie responds, “You should know me.” He waves a hand in front of his own face as if that should be enough of a clue. When he’s met with nothing but slightly confused silence, he goes red in the face and adds, “Super Lush Cosmetics.”

“Super Luxe,” Shades pipes up, either not knowing or not caring that he gets the name wrong. “You’re that pop singer who got into beauty stuff like… not even two years ago?”

“And don’t you sell underwear, too,” Suit asks. “Those skimpy, see-through numbers with the little pockets in the front to put your dick?”

“That’s one of the many styles, yes,” Beret breezily corrects.

Snarky tilts his head back, not particularly impressed. “You should stick to making music.”

Everyone at the table snickers. Even Minho has to fight back a laugh.

“I’m an _ entrepreneur _ now,” Beret says through clenched teeth. “I’m not just an idol who gets everything handed to him.”

The dealer flips over the first three community cards on the table with a practiced, whimsical flourish. Three of diamonds. Jack of spades. Nine of clubs.

Shot Glass lets out a quiet little sigh of relief. Almost too obviously. He raises four chips. Snarky calls without even a blink. Beret matches him out of spite. Shades deliberates, stresses, agonizes, then calls. Suit groans and chucks his cards forward, folds. Minho catches a glimpse of them in the air. An ace. A deuce. Nothing.

Minho’s got a pair, but balling so low, his odds will be better holding dust between his fingers. He slides four chips forward. Calling. 8 million won! If he’s not careful, he’ll be at the bottom of his bankroll before he’s even played ten hands. He fights back the anxiety and makes himself remember that he has a _ goal _ . He is down here tonight to challenge… him. Minho remembers that he is not playing with his cousins anymore. Candy, chore lists, devilish dares and hits on the wrist will never fly as bets here. Only ludicrous amounts of cash will count. Go big or go home and he will _ not _ go home.

Not yet.

Beret grows a backbone. “You’re Han Jisung, right?” He glares. Points.

Snarky wriggles his fingers in a parade wave. “Of course you’ve heard of _ me _.”

“Wasn’t your dad’s company just in the news,” Beret asks brightly. “For mistreating and underpaying their employees? A whole distribution center went on strike for three days costing the company… what was it? Billions? More? And delaying all of my product deliveries nearly a week?” He smiles wide and toothy. Harsh words sound messy spoken sweetly. “That’s _ your _ dad, right?”

Jisung’s top lip twitches in irritation.

Knowing he’s won, Beret props his elbows up on the edge of the table and puts his focus back on his cards.

Minho doesn’t pay too much attention to idols these days but he’s seen this guy’s face everywhere. Yang Jeongin. Several years back, he’d debuted in an idol group at the ripe age of 16 only for the struggling company to go belly up before the group’s second mini-album released. Before the group ever charted. Ever had a chance to. Desperate for a second chance, Jeongin went on one of those idol survival show programs, became a bit of a fan favorite because of his peppy personality, his quirky fashion sense and boyish good looks... only to get eliminated halfway through in a round many fans believe was rigged. Riding the coattails of his internet popularity, he hopped on another artist’s record label as a solo singer and, against all odds, _ took off _after releasing two or three mini albums… only to win a few trophies on music shows and all but vanish from the spotlight for over a year. Minho remembers that there had been nasty news articles about that company’s shady CEO and her borderline criminal dealings, but the police investigation progress got swept under the rug when Jeongin announced he was starting his own cosmetics company, of all things. It launched. Successfully. Noticeably due to the wide range of foundation shades. Then Jeongin released the underwear line, which was a surprisingly big hit once the gays started “modeling” in them on Instagram. Possibly due to the dick pockets. Fans demanded Jeongin get back in the studio and Jeongin reluctantly obliged them. The single he dropped two or three months ago had been good the first time Minho heard it on the radio but now that it’s sat in the top ten all summer, playing ad nauseum everywhere he goes, Minho’s sick of it. Wants to punt children as soon as he hears the opening melody.

Shit. Minho knows this isn’t his usual crowd but now he_ knows _. Minho is a touch out of his league here. He is no celebrity. No global conglomerate heir. He was born with no silver spoon in his mouth. This is not his world, he understands, but for tonight, he must fit in. “Jeongin, can I get an autograph,” he attempts to joke but he is either not heard or ignored.

Jisung’s still mad about his dad’s scandal being brought up. “Now that you know who you’re up against, no one will blame you if you fold,” he taunts, leaning towards Shades sitting next to him. Jisung is oddly attractive. Minho thinks he’s almost _ cute _ with a head full of lush hair and a noticeable swipe of gloss on his lips, but Minho also thinks that if Jisung wipes that cocky grin off his face, he’d be better looking. Humility looks better on most people.

“Well… we all know who _ you _ are,” Jeongin narrows his eyes at Suit. “Whether we want to or not. You didn’t bring a film crew with you, did you?” He looks around but it’s obvious none of their spectators carry cameras or phones.

Suit clears his throat. “This is my real life, not some scandalous storyline for the next season of the show.” He looks up in Minho’s direction briefly and Minho nearly gasps in recognition. Seo Changbin. _ The _ Seo Changbin! He’s the biggest celeb at the table as far as net worth goes. Famous for being famous. His family’s been reality television stars for nearly a decade, cursing each other out, getting plastic surgery, ruining people’s birthday parties, pulling people’s hair, fussing at each other for not having businesses they were passionate about and throwing expensive champagne in people’s faces. All for the nation’s entertainment. Minho’s got no clue what they actually _ do _ . How they all actually maintain their wealth. Their mother… does _ something _? The oldest sister is a fashion model? Maybe? The middle sister’s apparently a real estate agent with a show about selling billion won properties in Gangnam but there’s no telling how much of it is staged for the show if one considers how many unprofessional mistakes she makes. The youngest sister has two babies with two different rappers and is pregnant with a third baby from a third rapper. Baby boy Changbin has his own spin-off show, Minho recalls, where he--

“We all know how many times you’ve let your homies snatch your girlfriends,” Jisung cuts in. “Knock me for kink shaming but being a _ cuckold _ of all things? I’d rather be a eunuch.”

Well, that isn’t what the reality show is about, but--

“What about you,” Changbin easily slides out of the spotlight. “Who are _ your _ parents?” He leans towards Shades, who looks like he’s trying to hide from the world in black jeans, a frayed black hoodie with the hood drawn up over the cap on his head and scuffed black boots.

“You really asking?” Shades gives no time for his question to be answered. “Yeah, I get it. Everybody knows all of my problems. Dad’s on trial for embezzlement and sexual assault. Mom’s divorcing him to run off into the sunset with the secretary he cheated on her with. I’m sick of hearing about it.” Kim Woojin. Child actor. Was always in some warm, fuzzy daytime soap playing someone’s younger brother or being the male lead in some coming-of-age web drama. Baby-faced enough to be typecast in roles wearing a high school uniform even into his twenties. He is no longer a child, though, shucking his ‘nation’s boyfriend’ title cold turkey by playing the role of a strung out drug junkie call boy in an upcoming indie movie. There’s supposed to be full-frontal nudity, Minho remembers.

The dealer places down the fourth community card at the center of the table.

Everyone’s attention returns to the game.

King of clubs.

Damn. Minho’s _ still _ got next to nothing but no one at the table knows that. 

Shot Glass raises the bet to a staggering 11 million.

Woojin folds immediately. Jisung and Jeongin hang in there, holding steady with their calls.

Minho slides his chips forward to call.

“You’re Bang Chan, right,” Jeongin asks, turning to Shot Glass. Opponents dropping like flies makes him chatty, apparently. “CB97 or whatever the hell your stage name is.”

Chan swirls the dark brown liquid in his glass, not particularly acknowledging the attention.

Jeongin plows on regardless. “You’re that rapper who went viral earlier in the year.” It’s a statement. Not a question. “Got famous off of your first-- _ only _ song? How many remixes does this make now? A dozen? You’ve got some pretty big names on a few. Talk about luck. Album isn't even in the works yet, is it?”

Chan says nothing.

“Strike while the iron’s hot. You should be trying to get on everyone else’s tracks. What did Nicki say?” Jeongin switches to English to expertly rap the line, “_ $50K for a verse, no album out _.”

Jisung grinds his teeth so hard Minho hears his jaw pop.

Jeongin clearly does it on purpose. In Korean, he says, “Maybe my next song should sound like pots and pans banging together since that seems to be the wave.”

The dealer flips over the fifth and last card. Ace of hearts.

Changbin swears under his breath.

“Put me on your next remix,” Jeongin decides.

“Get your people to call my people.” Chan folds with a frustrated sigh.

Jisung follows him out.

“Do you even _ have _ people?” Jeongin puts his chin on his hand. “I’ve got a labelmate about to debut who could use a feature, too. I mean, since you’re putting everybody who asks on the track. I want to get in on the hype before I get called a straggler.”

Chan looks up, but it isn’t mouthy Jeongin he stares at.

Jeongin swivels around to follow his gaze. He looks at Minho at the far end of the table but it’s Jisung who furrows his eyebrows and asks, almost like he just now realizes Minho’s in the game, “Who are you? Who are your parents?”

Woojin looks up. “Haven’t seen you on TV.”

“Or heard you in music,” Changbin pipes up.

Jisung makes an assessment. “You the heir to some company? Hmmm. Cellphone manufacturer, I bet, just looking at you. Or… car parts. _ Plane _ parts.” He is wrong on all counts. His gaze drops to Minho’s pot of chips. It looks rather anemic in comparison to everyone else’s healthy, towering stacks. “You’re not illegitimate, are you?”

A chorus of giggles and childish snorts.

Minho sighs. He has to tell them eventually. “My mom won the lottery.”

There’s an awkwardly long beat of silence. Even the dealer’s stoic face cracks before she reels her expression back in. 

Changbin quips, “That’s it?” He notices Minho is serious. “How much?”

Woojin asks, “The powerball that’s been in the news for the past few weeks? Wasn’t the jackpot around 15?”

Minho shrugs. “It went up one more time. 17 and a half.”

“_ Billion _?” Jisung squawks as he recalls the vague scrap of info.

There’s more silence but, this time, it’s full of awe instead of discomfort.

“Nouveau riche,” says Woojin offhandedly, like he means to keep it to himself.

Newly rich is right. The money’s already changed the lives of Minho’s family even though it’s only been a weekend since his mother gave him half of the first of many checks. 

“Okay then,” Jeongin says. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” He throws more chips in, raises.

Minho calls. A 13 million won bet on a damn pair of threes! He’s _ asking _ to be guillotined! Asking to have his bloody head gift-wrapped and sent back home for the neighbors to put on a stake. This is silly. He should fold! But… it’s exciting. Thrilling. This feeling of knowing he can lose and lose _ big _ at any second... The risk stirs his blood. Sends a tingle from his toes to his nose. Makes him feel like life’s not a dream. The rush makes him grin. He bites his tongue to hide it.

Jeongin holds Minho’s gaze for the longest time. Tries to feel him out. Or scare him into cracking. He can’t do either. Yet. Jeongin slides more chips forward. 16 million.

Minho fearlessly holds out in their eye contact war for about five seconds, then his bravery runs out. He stares at his cards on the green in front of him, at the dizzying black and silver design printed on their backs. There’s a moment where he puts his fingers on them like he’s about to chuck them forward and fold but it’s like his hand doesn’t obey him. His mind attaches itself more firmly to the high stakes, to the excitement that bubbles between his legs at the very real risk of _ losing everything _. He reaches for more chips and he tosses them forward. 21 million. Easily divisible by his threes.

Jeongin grabs his chips and tosses more forward without taking a moment to consider. The bet’s now raised to 27 million won.

Christ.

Jisung coughs to cover a nervous laugh. Changbin puts his index fingers on his temples. Woojin is a blank, expressionless rock. Chan slurps down the last of his liquor and looks around for a waiter.

The dealer straightens up the chips into neat, orderly, easily-countable stacks before she looks at Minho, awaiting any last bets.

Minho tosses in more chips, raises to 35 million won. It’s stupid. It’s so fucking risky. It’s _ insane _. His hand will lose to pretty much everything else in terms of strength but he discovers he is genuinely aroused by the gamble. He squirms in his seat as his body heats feverishly.

Jeongin also enjoys the stand-off. His nostrils flare with excitement and he visibly resists a laugh. Jeongin looks back over at Minho with a daring smirk. His eyes say _ I can go all night. _

Minho fails to decide if Jeongin just has a good hand or if he’s called Minho’s bluff rounds ago. There’s a chance the smug look on his face is an additional scare tactic.

Jeongin’s smile suddenly stretches all the way across his face as if sensing Minho giving up a little. He says with a bit of a giggle, “We’re all here to have fun. No matter who you are, as long as you can buy in, you can sit in. No hard feelings, right?” He gives the other players at the table his brightest idol smile. Dimples dent his cheeks and Minho clearly sees how Jeongin is so popular with young girls. His face is both kind and intimidating, his handsomeness both refined and untamed, his youth both bubbly bright and hardened by puberty. Jeongin cheerily enunciates, “A game is only fun when either side can win at any moment.” His fingers find one of the stacks of his chips and he cuts the tower into two, then three, then four, and rearranges the chips between his fingers. Seconds pass. He stops fooling with the 1 million won chips, skips the 5s and toys with the 10 million won chips. 

He not so much buys time, Minho knows, as he does chew it up and spit it out. Time makes weaker players fidget, makes their game faces crack. Minho is no weak player. He sits still. He does not frown. Barely blinks. When the idol finishes his chip arrangement, Minho counts 10 of the blue 10 million chips in Jeongin’s palm.

If Jeongin makes such a raise, Minho _ knows _ he will be destroyed. Indebted.

Yet the piece of him that sits beneath his belly button almost _ wants _ Jeongin to make such an outrageous raise. The irrational, compulsive part of Minho’s psyche is banging at the door, fiending to go all in like a wild beast! It will only be fun if there’s a _ risk _.

The tension in the air sizzles as time winds down.

Jeongin sets his blue chips back down on the table. He goes back to the green 1 million won chips and calls Minho’s raise.

It is almost a disappointment.

Woojin twirls the ring on his finger and makes a croaking sound at the back of his throat like he’s dying of thirst. Chan finally catches the attention of a waiter and gets himself a fresh glass of whiskey. Changbin has his eyes shut as if _ he _ is the one still betting, waiting for his doom. Jisung watches Minho from across the table with a curious - almost sparkling - look in his eyes which makes Minho fear that he’s caught the guy’s _ attention _. Minho can’t shake the feeling he’s going to get eaten alive if he keeps sitting at this table. He should just fold and leave before he loses all of the money he came here with in a bet on one shit hand!

But…

But--!

With his heart beating its way up to his throat in red hot waves, Minho goes all in. 80 million won.

Everyone at the table holds their breath.

Jeongin’s smile disappears slowly. His poker face crumbles to show the first signs of dark, cloudy doubt. A ridiculous raise like that will not make much of a dent in his bankroll but, to Minho, it is everything he has. As much as poker is about luck, it’s more about money. A big player stays big, a small player risks nearly everything in bids for barely worthwhile returns. 

Players wield cash like a sword. The more chips, the longer and sharper and more dangerous the weapon becomes. 

Even a pro player folds on winning hands under the worrisome, looming threat of being drained dry.

Jeongin takes his hand off his chips, and flicks his cards forward instead, folding. He has three of a kind. Sixes. The mark of the goddamn beast.

The tension in the air eases out like blood from a stuck pig.

Minho releases a shaky breath and flips over his own hand. 

Thanks to the pot, he has won 100 million won with nothing but a pair of threes.

♢♣♡♠

The first time Minho wins over a million won in a single gamble, he is 15 years old playing poker in the restaurant’s upstairs game room. He’s been able to play a few hands a night now and the adults have only just stopped holding back their raises when he’s at the table. 

The next to last player folds. Minho’s last remaining opponent is the pot-bellied man who runs the _ noraebang _up the street. Most of the neighborhood folks are watching: the three veterinary assistants in their matching scrubs, the sexy girl from the cafe, the foreigner who teaches English at the elementary school, the young guy who hustles counterfeit sneakers and handbags on the corner, a few of the cram school teachers, the sisters who work the food truck, the nerdy-looking dude who runs the downtown sex toy shop, and the mahjong aunties in their colorful hats. 

Minho’s got a jack and a seven. Both diamonds. He’s got the wrong suit to have a straight flush but he’s made his opponent_ think _ he’s got one by going all in when the dealer, the old nun from the Catholic church, flips a ten of clubs to go along with the eight and seven of clubs she put down in the flop. The air is already hot with so many people in the small room but it gets even hotter when Minho slides all of his chips forward, which invites everyone to gasp and lean forward. Minho’s opponent can either call the ridiculous raise or fold but he does neither. He stares Minho down and then stares Minho down and then stares Minho down some more. He is not a mean guy but he is a mean- _ looking _ guy when he furrows those bushy eyebrows together, taps his finger on the corner of the table and leers at Minho over the rim of his bottle-lens glasses like Minho’s one of the unruly, drunken customers who won’t leave when their time’s up. The man glares and glares and it almost feels like Minho’s being reprimanded but he holds the man’s gaze for nearly sixty seconds straight. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and blanks his mind completely so that not a single muscle on his scarred face moves. Then, just as it feels like an entire hour passes, the pot-bellied man folds and reveals that he’s been holding on to a pair of motherfucking aces. Minho flips over his own hand and when his cards reveal his bluff, the room erupts in gasps and laughter and cheers and everyone slaps Minho heartily on the back or shakes him in his chair or pinches his cheeks. The noraebang guy guffaws and shakes Minho’s hand and it is the happiest Minho has ever been.

In the basement room of _ King of Hearts _, though, there is no celebration. No confetti or applause or handshakes. No popped corks of champagne. 

The other players show no emotion in the aftermath of Minho’s bluff.

The most Jeongin does is bite the inside of his cheek.

Fortunately, there’s a shift change then so the players stand and stretch and grab drinks in the free minute or so they have while the new dealer wipes the table.

Minho is on his way to the bar when Jisung grabs him by the elbow and leans dangerously far into his personal space. “I want you.” He recognizes the unintended lewdness of his own words. He amends, “I want to team up with you. Against Jeongin.”

“Why?” Minho asks. 

“He’s been getting on my nerves but you made him fold just by looking at him.”

That is an oversimplification. “It’s not like he was the one who made a batshit insane move.” Minho peels his arm out of the guy’s grip and pulls away. “Shouldn’t you be teaming up with Jeongin against _ me _ ?” Then again, he is still a small fry compared to the rest of the table. Woojin makes a better target. Sure, Minho has a bit in his bankroll now but he will have to win _ huge _ to even be considered a threat to the other players right now.

Minho resumes his march to the bar, that much more desperate for a hard drink.

“I’ll never team up with him. He’s a bitch who deserves to get socked in the mouth.” Jisung follows Minho closely although there is no danger of them being separated in the thin, exclusive crowd. “If anything, I want you on my side so that I can keep you in the game. You’re a firecracker, I think the saying goes.”

Minho elbows his way between two customers sitting at the bartop and flags down the bartender with a raised finger. “Rum and Coke,” he orders. 

The bartender nods and turns away to fix his drink.

“Help me out,” Jisung whines from behind him. “Jeongin will be so much easier to eat if we chew from both ends.”

Minho has only known Jeongin about five minutes but the kid has a way with words that just naturally pisses off everyone around him. But… “I lucked out,” Minho admits. “Get someone with more money on your side.” Changbin plays too cautiously despite his massive bankroll. Woojin plays too obviously even with the damn shades. “Ask Chan.”

“No. I want you,” says Jisung. His tone changes. Gets a little gravelly like he’s forcing it. “I want to see you go far.”

Minho is unimpressed. His exhaled breath passes between his lips almost in a whistle. It has been a single hand! He bluffed his way through it on top of that. If he calls his aunt up on the phone about it, she’d say it was an accident. “Leave me out of your schemes. I don’t want beef with any of you.” Minho’s already at a mild disadvantage with his noticeably slimmer bankroll. If the bets get too high for him, he will not be able to hang with the five others. Even if Jisung wants a sneaky partnership, Minho will get bullied off the table simply because he can’t up the ante. It’ll be so much easier to just take his winnings and go. Get in on a dice game and wait around until he spots his target. “Let’s just play fair,” he suggests. “I thought this place was infamous for being clean?”

Jisung leans too far into his personal space again. “That’s why this will stay between me and you.” 

Minho loses interest. Now that he is this close to Jisung’s face, he sees the lack of fire in the man’s eyes. There is no spark there. No enjoyment at all. Jisung gambles just to gamble, Minho decides. He throws money around because he has so much of it. Winning big matters little to him. Losing big probably matters less. Jisung is merely a player. Not a gambler. If Minho throws his body to the slaughter, it will only be along with someone who will _ risk everything _. Firmly, Minho says, “There’s nothing in it for me.”

“Do you not understand what I’m offering here,” Jisung asks. He loosens one more button on his silk shirt but the move is not sexual. “I’ll spot you some cash whenever you hit the red. A couple hundred million easy. I just want to see you eliminate Jeongin.”

Logically, Minho understands. He needs a large bankroll to make the raises necessary to deplete Jeongin’s stash but, emotionally, Minho cannot process it. 

There are no stakes for him. He won’t lose anything. There is no point. “I refuse.”

“Wait a second,” Jisung says. He reaches his ring-clad fingers up to Minho’s face to clutch Minho’s jaw. His thumb slides Minho’s bottom lip across his teeth and out of the way. Jisung leans closer still. “I knew I saw something glinting in there.”

They’re so close to each other that Minho feels Jisung’s breath roll across his tongue, roll across the silver piercing that skewers the pink muscle.

“Here,” Jisung points out. He briefly touches a finger to the stud that pierces Minho’s left nostril. “And here,” Jisung sings out lowly. His finger skirts over the dangling chain that pierces Minho’s left lobe. Minho feels the scarred skin of his face pull taut beneath the pinch of Jisung’s knuckles. “Oh… What’s this? You have one here, too.” Jisung pushes Minho’s purposefully messy hair back behind his left ear. The action reveals the dermal piercing slotted through the soft skin between Minho’s earlobe and his sideburns. 

It’s almost a relief, Minho thinks, for someone to pay more attention to his piercings than his red, disfiguring burn. It’s a relief that the piercings serve their purpose; that they distract just like he wishes they would distract. With a face like his, it’s a rarity anyone is distracted at all.

Jisung gently nudges the dermal piercing. “Interesting,” he hums as he gazes into Minho’s eyes as if expecting him to flinch from all of the prodding. 

Minho doesn’t.

Jisung’s eyes glint dangerously. His hand grows adventurous and starts a wayward journey down Minho’s neck, across his chest, to the bottom of his belly. His hand pauses just above the waistband of Minho’s jeans. He says, “Got any other… exotic piercings?”

It’s obvious what he’s implying but Minho is not about to offer the guy the satisfaction of cupping his groin in public. Minho turns his body away from Jisung’s hand. “That’s something you will never find out.” All of his piercings are on his face.

“Come on,” Jisung presses, “I’ll make it worth your while.” He clears his throat. “Not the bit about the piercing. Jesus. I don’t care. I mean getting Jeongin off the table. Let me sponsor you.”

That makes the deal ridiculously more lopsided. It is as if Jisung _ wishes _ to get Minho indebted to him and that sort of thing is dangerous with strangers. Legitimate operations send bills. Illegitimate operations like this one probably send thugs to confiscate property and goods. People like Jisung… What will he want to take? “What will you do if I lose that money?” _ A couple hundred million _ was a lot to lose.

“You won’t lose. I’m sure you won’t,” Jisung says casually but now there is a brand new scowl on his face. The expression of a man who is not used to being refused.

“You aren’t offering to spot that much money for free, are you?” Minho is familiar with these kinds of moves. These outside wagers. Bets on top of bets. The neighborhood mahjong aunties he grew up around and learned from were always loaning each other cash in the middle of a game if someone was running low. They did not demand interest or even a monthly payment plan in favor of making each other do absurd and usually publicly humiliating tasks so they could record it and post it online. And that’s only considering what they discussed when he was in the room. He has done his fair share of such dares. He has had his debts forgiven by cleaning out air vents, catching cheating husbands in the act with their mistresses, stealing exam questions, using violence to collect debts from others. He has also received money from the shadier types who live outside the neighborhood and his unpaid debts had him kidnapped and beaten or had shipments of fresh food to the restaurant stolen or contaminated, windows broken, the delivery van’s tires slashed. Minho knows there is no such thing as a _ gift _ in their world.

“I can spot you 200 mil. Say the word and it’s done,” says Jisung. He glances at his Apple watch as it dings with a notification. “Not enough for you? How about 500?”

He is such a businessman, Minho thinks. He never takes no for an answer.

The money Jisung’s offering here_ is _ tempting, as Minho’s primary worry is being suckered out of all of his cash by someone’s ridiculous raise and a bad hand… but there’s no fun in such a bargain. The reward comes without the risk. Minho asks one more time, “What will you do to me if I can’t get you your money back?”

The question baffles Jisung. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

Minho tilts his head and scrunches up his scarred face. Is money of so little consequence to this kid that even being _ paid back _ matters little to him? Minho belatedly remembers that Han Jisung is heir to a company that sits at the top of the global capitalism food chain. It is not even the idea of the money that upsets Minho. It is the lack of consequence. He wouldn’t even borrow 500,000 won without knowing what’s at stake. Every loan comes with insurance. Even the mahjong ladies back home demand he do repairs around their houses if he loses big and can’t pay up after a gambling night. It is foreign to him that Jisung will just give him so much cash without even the threat of thuggish violence behind it. “If you won’t do anything, then I’m not interested.”

“Do you _ want _ me to say I’ll hurt you?” The very idea horrifies Jisung. “Do you want me to… do something to you?”

“I’m just establishing the rules.” Minho cards a hand through his hair. He does his best to cover his face after Jisung’s earlier inspection had left him feeling exposed. “And what are the rules for if there is no punishment for breaking them?” His mother puts him on cooking duty at the restaurant. The veterinary assistants make him clean out the dog kennels. Even the nun makes him trim all of the church hedges! Everyone has ways of getting their money back. “What will you do if I can’t force Jeongin off the table?”

Jisung still looks confused. It’s like he cannot fathom the idea of Minho losing. “It’s just a game, man. I’m not trying to start anything. Just want to have a little fun.”

“A gamble with no risks isn’t fun,” Minho explains. “Debt without repercussions isn’t fun.”

“You _ like _ being in debt?”

“I like being at risk.”

Jisung presses himself up against Minho’s side like there's room for him there. He reaches into the front pocket of his shirt, slips free a folded bill and presses it into the bartender’s hand when the gentleman slides the mixed drink towards Minho. It is definitely more cash than the drink is worth and the bartender definitely does not offer to go get change. “Just take the money and play, man.”

That just seals it. The ease with which Jisung flings around money does not entice Minho. “Thanks for the drink,” Minho says. He hoists the glass off the bar and raises it to his lips. “But I'm not cutting any deals.” He waits exactly how long he needs to before he adds, “With _ you _.”

The rejection hits Jisung like a slap to the face but he says nothing. His expression goes flat and his eyes get almost… angry.

Good. Men always forget their ideals and morals when backed into a corner.

Minho waits. Does Jisung raise the stakes? Will he make the gamble worth it?

Jisung doesn’t. He only fumes. “Spoilsport.”


	2. Up The Ante

Minho isn’t crazy, he’s just addicted to the rush. Addicted to feeling like he’ll lose everything. Addicted to feeling like someone will  _ take _ everything from him.

He can’t help it. Perhaps it’s borne from the wild nights of fun back at the restaurant where the neighborhood would gather to humiliate each other and damage someone’s pride over a bad hand of cards. Minho’s been humiliated. He’s also done the humiliating. Sitting at a game table is the one place Minho feels equal with everyone else. 

Equally at risk.

There’s a very specific thrill he gets when his entire livelihood as a man and perhaps even as a person rests on whether he gets an even or an odd when he rolls the dice. It is like in winter, growing up, when all of the school-age boys strolled across the river when it froze over as a demonstration of courage. The ice would crackle ominously beneath their boots. All it took was one bad move for the ice to give and for someone to wind up chest-deep in freezing cold water, the shock to the nerves worse than a knee to the groin. Minho loves the feeling of everything being up to luck. Of knowing that there is no reason to hope or pray because the cards have literally been dealt already.

He loves to lose himself in the gamble. Gets off on it a little bit.

“Out of the way,” Jisung snaps. There is plenty of room to walk but he smashes his bony little shoulder against Minho’s broader one in his haste to walk past him and get back to the poker table.

Minho accepts the rudeness. No. It makes him smile. He is sure he can use Jisung’s stress against him. Like a child who throws a tantrum in a store when their parents won’t buy them an overpriced toy, Minho knows he can use Jisung’s attitude as a weapon. Lure him into promises that won’t be kept. Make him vulnerable just to exploit the exposed weakness. But that can come later…

Casually, Minho glances around the game room. He can’t tell if it is his imagination or if the room has gotten more crowded than when he first arrived. There’s a group of men in army fatigues in the corner, medals and name tags shamelessly gleaming across their chests as they take swigs of brown liquor from the long neck of a bottle they pass between them. There’s a flamboyantly dressed man in a floral-patterned Oscar de la Renta jacket who seems to be in charge of directing the waiters around the room. In one of the booths sits a man wearing Armani who has managed to lure not one, not two, but  _ three _ women into the circumference of his arms as he lounges back. None of the men, Minho discovers, are his target. None of the people he has seen is the man that he is after. 

Well, man is a bit of a stretch. He’s younger than Minho. Wilder. Prettier. But also more dangerous. More wicked. Less restrained. A bigger gambling addict than Minho.

A proper foe.

Losing big. Winning big. The money itself doesn’t excite Minho. The risk does. The debt excites him. The  _ punishment _ for being in debt excites him. There’s a fire that stirs in him only when he stares down his opponent from across the table and has to rely on his own good sense to see through their bluff.

Minho doesn’t see that fire in anybody else when he approaches his seat at the celebrity poker table.

These players… They’re just rich kids fucking around with pocket change. Jisung proves it.

That’s why Minho wants to play against  _ him _ .

That man… He is here. Somewhere. And all Minho wants tonight is to be at his mercy.

“Finally,” Chan huffs. “Goddamn.” He rolls his eyes as Minho sits back down with the rum and coke in his hand.

“You took so long, we were about to start without you,” Jeongin chirps. He watches Jisung settle onto his stool. When Jisung gives him no response, the idol-turned-entrepreneur hooks his eyes in Minho’s direction. “What were you two talking about for so long?”

“Does it matter,” Changbin huffs impatiently. He flips a poker chip in the air. Catches it on his palm. “Let’s just play. We’ve waited long enough.”

Jeongin doesn’t let it slide. He keeps his gaze pinned on Minho. “What discussion was so important it made you hold the rest of us up?” 

Minho decides to take advantage of the situation. All he has to do is plant the seed. “Nothing,” he says, but he makes his voice come out a little breathy, a little shaky. He raises his glass to his mouth and tilts it back until he rescues a chunk of ice from the liquor. The whole while, he avoids Jeongin’s stare. The mahjong ladies back home would have laughed Minho off the table after such a transparent act, but--

“Nothing, huh?” Jeongin glances over at Jisung again. Raises an eyebrow. The bait has been taken.

“They were probably just making plans to hook up after this,” Woojin interjects. “Did you see how they were eyeing each other during that last hand?”

Absolutely not. Minho hides his surprise by gnashing harder than he means to on the chunk of ice in his mouth.

Jisung tries to look unaffected, but he carries too much tension in his jaw and neck and shoulders. It ends up making Jisung look  _ nervous _ and, purposefully or not, the behavior works for Minho’s plan.

“I see.” Jeongin sits up a bit straighter.

Minho takes a sip from his rum and coke. Tentatively at first to get a feel for the taste but then more heartily as he realizes with mild horror that the bartender was light on the pour. More soda than liquor. No wonder Chan was over there guzzling down his drinks like an alcoholic. It all has been watered down.

Chan notices him staring and holds up his glass in solidarity. “I guess it’s also shit at the bar?”

Minho nods and sets his glass aside. It’s tasteless. Doesn’t even set a fire to his throat.

“I haven’t even had to piss yet,” Chan adds.

Jeongin clenches his fists on top of the table. “You waited at the bar that long just for a bad drink?” He’s suspicious but of absolutely nothing.

Good.

Minho can make use of that. Too much confidence can lead a man into an obvious trap as they stomp where they should lightly tread. Too much caution, on the other hand, can turn a man in the opposite direction of his destination completely. Jeongin may pass up on a big play if he’s this convinced Jisung and Minho have teamed up. Minho meets Jeongin’s eye. “No need to worry,” he says to really sell it. “We just-”

“Shut up,” Jisung cuts in. Perhaps he’s still a little mad about Minho’s rejection of his offer.

Minho can’t quite tell if Jisung knows what he is doing and is playing along or if he’s just mindlessly reacting but, either way, Minho can see fresh paranoia darken Jeongin’s eyes.

“Since we are all here, let us begin,” the new dealer says. He opens the carton of a fresh deck of cards and begins to shuffle. Unlike the previous dealer, whose nimble fingers had the cards dancing like something out of a magician’s trick, this dealer is all business and the cards fly between his palms with a loud, percussive noise. 

It goes quiet around the table as the players wait.

Minho takes the downtime to count and rearrange his poker chips, using the repetitive motions to mask how intently he watches his opponents out of the corner of his eye.

Changbin’s escaped his designer suit jacket and does not seem to mind exposing the sweat stains beneath his pits. Woojin unzips and discards his bulky black hoodie which reveals his black t-shirt and the broad impact of his pectoral muscles beneath the cotton. Jeongin remains in his flashy beret but has removed his bowtie. As Minho watches, Jeongin loosens the first two buttons at the top of his shirt, exposing a long stretch of skin from his neck to his clavicle. Jisung swats a lick of sweat-damp hair away from his eyes and sighs miserably. Chan gulps down the last of his drink and then presses his cool, empty glass to the side of his face like its an ice pack.

Now that Minho gets comfortable again, it  _ is _ wildly hot beneath the game room’s bright lights. His own denim jacket is stifling, painful, like clawed hands pressing into his soft throat, but he keeps the garment on. To him, it is armor that will keep far more dangerous teeth and claws out of his neck.

“Please keep your hands above the table,” the dealer reminds them as he finishes shuffling and starts slinging the playing cards across the green. The cards spin through the air and land in front of each player with unreal smoothness.

Minho tilts his head and looks up at him. The dealer is tall. Handsome. Narrow. Beneath the dress shirt and vest, his figure is almost hourglass in shape and Minho wonders how much space he’ll have left between his fingers if he wraps his hands around the man’s waist. The name tag on the dealer’s chest reads Hyunjin. He is attractive enough to be bewildering so Minho forces himself to look away. Every dealer that is employed here is so damn hot. It  _ has _ to be in the job description.

The attractiveness is part of the deception, he reminds himself. Part of the distraction. He must never lose focus.

With his mind back in the game, Minho once again stares at his opponents from the corner of his eye. He’s played a decent round with these guys so he feels like he has an idea of who has what kind of hand just from subtle gestures. Chan looks more interested in flagging down a passing waitress for even more whiskey than in the cards of his hand. Jisung’s managed to wrestle his facial expression into something neutral. Jeongin stares blankly at Hyunjin’s long-fingered hands as he deals. Woojin looks at ease. For once. Changbin fumbles with his tie like he’s a split-second from yanking it off.

_ Woojin’s got a strong hand _ , Minho assumes.  _ But so do I.  _ He flicks his thumb under the smooth corners of his cards one more time. He’s memorized them already but it doesn’t hurt to look.

King of clubs. Nine of diamonds. Weak on their own but his number of outs is so high that he’ll get something useful out of the flop. Almost guaranteed. That’s just basic probability. He goes out of his way to keep the relief off of his face. To hold just enough tension in his forehead to not look  _ relaxed _ . It’s a delicate balancing act. To get through this, his expression must remain unreadable. He mustn’t give away even the tiniest of smirks or sighs. That is why it is named a poker face.

“Now that we’ve established who is who,” says Jisung, boldy manhandling the conversation, “how about we truly get to know each other? Beneath the bullshit and the scandal and the PR teams, I mean.”

“What are you suggesting,” Changbin asks, wary for good reason. Any plan out of this guy’s mouth has to be suspect.

Jisung explains, “Let’s just say one thing about ourselves that no one would guess based on our status.”

Status. Right. Minho is the only one sitting at this table who is not a celebrity or high-grossing heir. He is the only one who doesn’t belong.

Chan slides three chips forward. Starting things off with a 3 million won bet is simply how they do things around here. “I don’t write my own raps.”

It doesn’t satisfy the criteria. “All of us have a ghostwriter,” Jeongin snaps. “I don’t produce my own beats but everyone who reads the album credits knows that. It’s not a secret.”

“We need something juicer,” Jisung demands.

Jeongin and Jisung being in agreement is like hell freezing over.

Chan takes a sip from his new glass of liquor and visibly cracks beneath the brand new pressure. “That song I debuted with… The one that’s been such a big hit… I stole it from an old friend.”

Jisung calls the bet. Both in chips and in secrets. “I’ve been working with labor unions to help them protest against my shit father. Get him removed from his office.” 

The others give in to Jisung’s silly game with less resistance than Minho expects.

“I slept with my CEO for a chance to go solo,” Jeongin says with a careless shrug. “Then slept with her again for a chance to launch my cosmetics line.” He slides three chips forward.

Woojin, at least, hesitates for several seconds before just spewing some dark, corrupted secret.

“You can’t hold out on us,” Jisung leans towards Woojin. “You have to tell us something, actor boy, or you’re out of this hand.”

“I didn’t fucking agree to that,” Woojin huffs. Yet he caves. He chucks three chips forward. “I was the one who leaked the photos to the media that revealed my dad’s affair.”

Changbin laughs but there is not a shred of joy in the low, staccato noise. “God. You’re all psychos. What’s wrong with you guys? What’s actually fucking  _ wrong _ with you all?” His whole body goes rigid and there is a quiet, tense moment where Minho is sure that Changbin’s gonna jump up and run from the table. Minho’s only watched a handful of episodes of the reality show about the Seo family but Changbin seems like the quiet, meek type who flees from any kind of vulnerability. And yet, “Not as much of my show is as scripted as people think.” He tosses three chips across the green. “I really do wind up surrounded by _ that _ many people who only want to get close to me for my wealth. It’s good TV so my mother and sisters never try to stop it from happening.”

Slowly, five sets of eyes land on Minho. Six when even Hyunjin, the dealer, waits expectantly for Minho’s bet.

Minho is used to dealing with the repercussions of debt. His own. The debts of others. Hell, the burn scar on the entire left side of his face is a direct consequence of his mother’s debt - the one consequence that still lingers even after the debt has been repaid. There are still nights where taking too hot of a shower triggers the memory of being held down by thugs from Daegu, the grown men laughing and jeering as they dirtied Minho’s school uniform with their shoes and poured hot water over his face, demanding to know where his mother was hiding their money. The loan plus a ridiculous interest. The ridiculous interest plus more because they  _ could _ make such demands. Sitting at the table, Minho realizes that this seemingly innocent ice breaker is debt in disguise. The players are all offering up broken-off pieces of their armor. Tidbits of their secret selves that they can all use against each other, whether during the game or after it when they all go back to their regular lives. It is absolutely genius on Jisung’s part and Minho is positive that everyone else is smart enough to have figured that out. Yet it took seconds for them to offer up such weaknesses.

Minho calls. He will not run away from a chance to risk something. He slides three chips forward and says, “I made an outside bet with Jisung to take Jeongin out of the match.”

It is a bald-faced lie.

But...

“What the fuck,” Jisung snaps. He slams a fist on the table, stands. His stool scrapes across the floor. “You fucker! I should-”

“Please refrain from any yelling or violence,” Hyunjin recites. The ease with which he says it makes it clear he has to regularly de-escalate fights in this place.

Jisung slumps back onto the stool. “Dammit, man.”

“Jesus,” Woojin whispers.

Everyone else at the table makes similar sentiments.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say that out loud,” Changbin decides. He looks up at Minho.

“Is it any different from any of the things you guys said,” Minho fires back. 

Changbin sits there. Stares. It is logic he can’t quite follow.

Minho bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from grinning. He can’t be betrayed by his secret if his ‘secret’ does all of the betraying.

Jisung stares at Minho again but not with the sparkly-eyed adoration from the previous hand. He has finally caught on to the fact that Minho is  _ up to something _ but it is difficult to tell if he’s figured out the details exactly.

“I guess I should be on the lookout,” admits Jeongin. Whether he knows it or not, he plays right into Minho’s trap.

It’s a small victory but it still counts. It still gives Minho a smidgen of leeway. He has paranoia on his side, now. It’s not cheating, he thinks. Just a little bit of insurance to even the playing field. Poker isn’t just a card game, the mahjong ladies back home would say. You play with the minds of your opponent, too.

Hyunjin throws down the flop with the precision of a surgeon. Three of diamonds. Eight of spades. Jack of spades.

Minho has nothing. Jack shit! No pair. No hope for a flush. Nothing. But if he folds now, he could miss out on the possibility of a straight or pair. Shit. He grits his teeth and holds on, even when Chan folds immediately.

“Pussy.” Jisung raises the bet to 7 million won, his chips roll across the green. They teeter on their edges like tires but Hyunjin swiftly plucks them up and places them in neat stacks like he can do this in his sleep.

“We’ve got all night,” Chan says in his defense. “Only lunatics bet high with shit in their hand.” He flips his cards over. A two of clubs. An ace of diamonds.

Hyunjin slides the discarded cards out of the way. “Your remaining bets,” he prompts, keeping the players on track. 

Jeongin cautiously checks. He angles himself on his stool so that he can look at Jisung and Minho on either side of him without the need to turn his head. 

Woojin calls. 

Changbin calls. 

Minho thinks about his own cards again. A king and a nine. Nothing. And only lunatics bet high on nothing. Minho takes one step closer to the cliff edge of lunacy and raises the bet to ten million won. There really is no reason or strategy behind it. He just wants to light a fire.

It must burn brightly. Both Jisung and Jeongin spin on their stools to look at Minho. They both lose their composure. Jisung gets a little red-faced from anger. Jeongin gets even more suspicious.

Surprisingly, it is Jisung who gets his expression under control first, a split-second before Jeongin turns and looks at him. Jisung calls Minho’s raise. 

Jeongin balls his hands into fists. It would be smart for him to fold, knowing he faces two players who are ‘against’ him but he holds on to his pride with all he has. He mutters, “Fuck it,” and calls the bet.

Woojin and Changbin both check so Hyunjin places down the next card. Six of hearts.

Fuck. There goes Minho’s chances at a straight. A seven or ten would have been ideal.

Woojin folds. Flings his cards towards the center of the green. They land face up to reveal his shit hand. Minho forces himself to not react. His earlier assumption had been wrong. He’d misread Woojin’s out-of-character slouchiness.

Changbin follows Woojin out of the hand. He tosses forward his four of clubs and queen of hearts.

Again, Jisung glares at Minho. His dark brown eyes rake across Minho’s skin. Focus on his hands, on his mouth, on his eyebrows. Anywhere a weakness may show. Minho stands up to the scrutiny and stares right back. He blanks out his mind. He thinks about kittens. He thinks about the busted light outside the restaurant his aunt won’t get replaced even though she has more than enough money for it now. He thinks about how long it’s been since he’s sung karaoke. He thinks about how he actually misses going to school. He thinks about anything except his shitty cards so that Jisung can’t find anything on his face to use against him.

Jisung finds something anyway. “Raise,” he calls out. The chips he tosses out brings the bet to 16 million won. A sizeable chunk of change that he tosses to the center of the green like it means nothing.

Woojin lets out a whoosh of air, like he’s just dodged a bullet.

Jeongin sits rigidly. Statue still. Everyone at the table hears the joints in his spine pop as he leans forward to grab his chips and call. 

His bravery is commendable, Minho figures. But so is his own as he calls the bet with absolutely nothing in his hand.

In the hand they’d played before the dealer switch, Jeongin had kept a conversation full of taunts and insults going. Now, he remains quiet. On edge. Without his chattering, the rest of the table stays mute. Still.

The noise of the rest of the large game room encroaches in on them. The whoops and hollers of the spectators and the  _ plink-plink-plink _ of chips at the next table over. The loud noise of the players down at the roulette table. The low, indistinct hum of distant conversation. The clink of ice in drinking glasses and the laughter of the crowd in the corners. Really, the place is one step away from a proper casino. If only they could have slot machines. Minho quite likes all of the racket those things keep up.

Hyunjin places down the last community card. Nine of hearts.

Minho nearly makes a rookie mistake. He bites back the sigh of his relief. No one can notice the slip-up because they would know he has nothing but nines. He keeps his throat loose, his mouth firm. He can’t afford to give anything away. Nines don’t usually float too high, especially as a pair, but it is all he has so it’s all that he can give.

Jisung raises yet again. A staggeringly high 22 million won.

Jeongin folds. Probably the smartest decision.

Minho… hesitates. The seconds crawl by as he deliberates. He does not want to back down. His mother raised him better than that. But he does not want to be stupid and the line between the two is so blurry and indistinct that he has probably crossed it already.

Hyunjin lifts a hand to the turn timer, presses a button. The display on the screen starts counting down the seconds Minho has left to make a move. At first, Minho waits purposefully. He hopes to put Jisung on edge. Then he waits because he feels it is his only option. Every second he takes to think will be monumental. He runs the math in his head, tries to come up with the percentage of how likely it is that Jisung has matched a pair of jacks. Hell, even a pair of tens will be effective here!

The time winds down. Minho waits until the last actual second to raise the ridiculous wager to an even more ridiculous 27 million won.

All of Minho’s worrying does him no good.

Jisung takes all of three seconds to count his chips and raise the bet to 34 million won.

It’s like the last hand all over again.

Minho can’t keep doing this. He can’t keep allowing himself to fall into such traps and make huge bets. All of these millions in won. They’re just ripples in the water to a man like Han Jisung but to Minho, it’s a third of the money that he just won. He won’t have the chips to last through the night at this table. No. Fuck all that. He won’t have the chips to make a game against  _ him _ interesting. If he shows up.

If he’s really here.

Jisung goads him, “Well?”

Minho doesn’t know what happens or when but the fire he’s tried to stoke has died down to little more than smoldering embers. Poker games can run for over a hundred hands and no one can last that long with every hand getting astronomically high bets like this, yet that’s what Jisung is leading them towards. Just as Minho fears, Jisung swings around his large bankroll in hopes of pressuring everyone else out of the game. It’s a cowardly tactic but it is effective, a legal move and absolutely nothing can be done about it except by someone with an equally large bankroll. Minho is not that someone. 

In the seconds Minho isn’t looking, Jisung steels his anger into a vicious, white-hot expression he keeps aimed at Minho. It’s just some petty sneering, really. It should not be so effective. Yet Minho feels like a deer caught in the headlights when he looks up and meets Jisung’s eye.

Minho succumbs. He can’t lose everything. Not when he hasn’t seen his target yet.

He reminds himself that he doesn’t even care about these players. None of them will satisfy him so trying to force it will not help. Minho folds. Tosses forward his cards and reveals his pair of nines.

Jisung lets that snarky, shit-eating grin crawl across his face. He’s won. Last man standing. He flips over his cards to reveal the two of hearts and the five of spades. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Jisung’s bluff was solid and Minho hates himself for not paying enough attention to see through it.

He could have won. He could have won if he’d held on!

“Thanks, boys,” Jisung sings out.

Hyunjin gathers everyone’s playing cards into a pile in front of him. His slim-fingered, elegant hands make quick work of the task of aligning them all in a neat, orderly stack.

“I see,” Jeongin says. It’s not obvious what he sees.

Minho knows what  _ he _ sees, though, and that’s Hyunjin as he slides all of the bet poker chips across the green to Han Jisung, who counts them and toys with them, all while never taking his eyes off of Minho.

Woojin sees the eye contact. He points a finger first at Jisung and then at Minho. “I thought you two were teaming up against Jeongin?”

“Jeongin folded,” Minho says quickly before Jisung can blurt something out to destroy his plan. He keeps staring at Jisung. He keeps hating himself for backing down. “But someone doesn’t know how to give up.”

Jisung’s smug smile increases in size. It gets just a tad sinister.

“Nice try,” Changbin whispers to Minho. His tone is just flat enough to make it impossible to tell if he is being sincere or sarcastic.

With no need for a shift change or bar break, Hyunjin begins dealing the next hand.

Minho balls his hands into fists on top of the table. He is frustrated with himself and rightfully so. It’s not even that he lost with a good hand, it’s that he lost with a good hand to  _ Jisung _ . He will not make such a mistake twice.

Hyunjin deals Minho his second card. He flips up the corners with his thumb. Two aces. Right off the bat. It’s about as calming as salve on a wound. Trying to stay confident, Minho glances over at his opponents but he is still too upset to discern anything useful from their expressions. The only sign any of them gives is Changbin as he goes wide-eyed with a sudden discovery. Too obviously. Clearly a trap of some sort.

Chan gets them started. A 3 million won bet again. He’s pushed his empty glass of liquor aside and, for once, does not seem interested in getting a fresh one. Perhaps he’s properly drunk enough now. He does look a bit red-cheeked and shiny-eyed.

Jisung, probably still mad at Minho, raises the bet to 10 million won without giving it a second thought.

Woojin audibly groans. He reaches for his cards as if to fold.

Not again. Not like this. Minho purses his lips. Jisung is going to throw a wrench in the plan if he keeps--

Changbin speaks up, “I saw your cards, Jisung.”

Woojin pauses. His fingers on his cards.

Everyone looks over at Jisung to gauge his reaction. The heir looks startled at first but then fumes. “From all the way over there?” He rolls his eyes. Tries to keep his guard up. 

“I saw,” Changbin insists. “I did.”

Minho leans forward. He wonders if this is why Changbin had been so surprised a bit earlier. The confrontation intrigues him.

“You saw nothing.” Yet Jisung slides his cards a microscopic distance closer to his torso.

Changbin snorts and leans backward. “Suit yourself.”

Hyunjin follows the altercation back and forth with nothing but his eyes.

“You didn’t see anything,” Jisung keeps going.

“Wanna bet,” Changbin asks with more backbone than Minho expects out of him.

“You’re just trying to be an asshole. Like your little friend.” Jisung waves a hand in Minho’s direction.

Changbin points across the table at the cards in front of Jisung. “Nine of diamonds. Jack of spades.” Just like that.

“Shit,” Chan whispers.

Jisung wastes no time. “I fold.” He tosses them forward. They land face up next to Hyunjin’s hand. The diamonds are a six as opposed to a nine and the jack is a club, not a spade. Still, though, Changbin proves himself. “Fucking hell, man,” Jisung gripes.

Everyone at the table visibly stiffens. They all go through great pains to use their hands to block their cards.

Minho doesn’t move to touch his, though. A pair of aces will stay a pair of aces.

Jeongin’s bet is next. He calls to 3 million.

The remaining players do the same and Minho is thankful that Jisung and his rude, extravagant raise are out of this particular hand. Left to his own devices and the younger man will bully everyone else off the table. Minho usually doesn’t mind such differences in bankroll but at least back at home he can count on the other players to not take the fun out of everything.

Hyunjin lays down the flop. Ten of clubs. Eight of clubs. Five of diamonds. He spends a moment to touch their corners and straighten them into a neat row.

Minho zones out.

He still feels terribly off-kilter. He feels… played.

Sure, a bluff is no rare occurrence in poker. He had done the same thing himself! Yet it still stings. It still upsets him. Losing to Jisung feels so unsatisfying. Worse than his watered-down alcohol.

The game continues on around him. Chan raises to a manageable 6 million won. Jeongin, Woojin and Changbin all call.

Minho only becomes vaguely aware that it is his turn when Changbin spins in his stool to stare at him. Minho has moments to come to a decision. With Jisung out of the hand, this would be the perfect opportunity to go big and at least earn back the money he just lost. If he does not make a huge return soon, he won’t make nearly enough money to make tonight worth it. If he makes too big of a raise now, though, he is sure his nerves will give him away.

He needs to take a moment to cool down. He calls the 6 million won bet. It is best to bide his time.

With the round of bets completed, Hyunjin lays down the next card. Queen of clubs.

Jeongin attempts to resuscitate a conversation. “You still dating that artist? The sculptor?” He leans towards Woojin as if to make sure there is no confusion about who he is addressing. 

“Dating is… a strong word,” Woojin states. “We just see each other a lot.”

“Oh, so it’s just a casual fling thing, then?”

Woojin narrows his eyes and tilts his head back in mild annoyance at Jeongin’s implications. “That’s none of your business.”

“Which means I guessed correctly.” Jeongin turns to Chan. “Aren’t you banging someone, too? Dispatch caught you just the other week, right? Some idol group chick? I bet it’s a publicity stunt. Do the teasers for her group’s next comeback drop next month or something?”

Changbin asks, “You don’t know when to quit, do you?”

As if out of spite, Chan grabs a mighty handful of his chips and tosses them forward.

Hyunjin scoops them up and stacks them neatly. The dealer says, “Raise. To 16 million won.”

Fuck.

“Oh ho ho,” Jeongin snorts. “I’ve pissed you off, haven’t I?” He counts out his own chips and calls the bet. “I must have guessed right about that. God, you all are so easy to read.”

Jisung folds his arms across his chest and scowls. It must  _ eat him up _ that he’s not playing this hand. The torture on his face tastes sweet.

Woojin flattens his expression but the anger in his tone remains. “Do you really have nothing better to do in your spare time than read the netizen blogs?”

It must be true. Now that Minho thinks back, it always seems to be Jeongin who brings up the most random tidbits of information about the other players. Minho is thankful that he’s somewhat of a nobody and that he is safe from Jeongin’s investigations.

Instead of replying to Woojin’s question, Jeongin states, “Are you calling or not? We don’t have all day.”

The actor and the singer stare each other down. The air sizzles with tension.

A few seconds in and Jeongin believes he’s won. He smiles slowly, showing off his teeth like a dog about to bite.

Woojin sees the challenge. Rises to it. Throws in a stack of chips without counting them. Without looking at them.

Skillfully, Hyunjin scoops them up into neat stacks, counting them up. “Raise,” he announces. “To 24 million won.”

“Goddammit,” Changbin swears. He wants to fold. Minho can see it in Changbin’s expression. Yet something seems to take over Changbin. The frustration leaves his face. He grabs his chips, counts out the necessary number, calls the bet.

The bet is steep and there are still rounds of betting to go. No one except Jisung has folded yet which is wild because these boys are quick to drop out of a hand.

Minho uses this opportunity. He pushes forward his own chips and quietly raises the bet to 29 million won. 

Jeongin finds Chan’s wound. Puts salt in it. “I didn’t even know you were a big enough deal to be involved with an idol group already. You aren’t even from the same entertainment company but I suppose going viral like that opens all sorts of doors.” Jeongin shakes his head like he can’t believe it. “I’ve toiled for years out in the shit and have just barely made it but you come in with some shit noisepop and explode overnight. How does it feel?”

“Will you ever  _ shut up _ ,” Jisung cuts in. “This is why we want you out of the game.”

“I’m asking a very real question,” Jeongin smiles all toothy and wide like a shark opening its maw. He leans across Jisung to get closer to Chan’s face. “Are you not ashamed at all? Do you have no pride as a man? To have gotten so far with work that’s not even yours? I bet the so-called ‘friend’ you stole it from is pissed to all hell. I bet they resent you.”

“I’m out,” Chan says. He chucks his cards forward angrily. For a moment, Minho thinks Chan is simply folding his hand but the man in his tacky shirt and shorts clumsily grabs his remaining poker chip stacks in both hands and stands up on wobbly, drunken feet. “It was a pleasure,” he says, making eye contact with everyone at the table except Jeongin. “Really it was.”

“Chan,” Woojin calls out. “Wait. Chan!” But it is too little, too late. Chan elbows his way through the spectators that have gathered around their table. He barely manages to keep a hold of all of his chips, using the hem of his shirt to carry them.

“Oh my God,” Jisung groans, but more out of frustration than anything else.

“My, my,” Jeongin sounds so giddy. He is a villain who has succeeded in their plans. “He needs a thicker skin if he’s going to last in  _ this _ industry.”

“Any other bets?” Hyunjin’s voice slices through the tension. His impartiality is like a hammer being brought down on a plate of fine china, splintering everything to pieces. When no one responds, Hyunjin states, “Let us continue.” He pulls the fifth and final community card from the deck and neatly places it on the green. Nine of spades.

The morale at the table is in the pits. Jisung puts a hand over his mouth as if to physically stop himself from screaming at the top of his lungs. 

Jeongin sighs. Not with weariness but with content. He raises to 35 million won and then casually readjusts his beret as if his attitude hasn’t just made someone leap up and run for cover.

Woojin folds with a groan. It is anticlimactic.

Changbin, on the other hand, calls the bet.

Minho does not sink too much time into it. He raises to a nice and neat 40 million won.

Jeongin folds immediately. However, his nasty little gremlin smile does not disappear. “Too bad I know nothing about you.” He points a finger in Minho’s direction. “I won’t say anything about your ugly face, though. That would be cheap.”

The insult glides off of Minho. He has heard far, far, far worse. He got his scars and burns from protecting his mother. That wouldn’t make him ugly. “And I won’t say anything about your awful fashion sense.” He does not mean to defend Chan but the words rush up out of him regardless. “And how can you say anything about anyone else’s career path? Didn’t you admit to taking salacious shortcuts of your own? Your CEO should probably be in jail.”

Jeongin is not fazed. “She probably will be.” He props his elbows up onto the table and places his chin on his raised palm. “I’m positive she’ll get a few years for wage theft.”

He is like a mosquito. He bites at the skin and draws blood. Transfers disease.

No wonder everyone at the table wants to squash him flat.

But Jeongin isn’t Minho’s opponent. Changbin is.

“I get humiliated enough on national TV, thank you very much,” he says. Changbin calls Minho’s last-second bet.

40 million won.

Minho has a pair of aces. He’s got this in the bag.

Hyunjin turns his hands, palms facing upwards. “Showdown!” It’s an uncharacteristically dramatic pose. Like something he saw on a TV show that he’s been dying to try out.

Confidently, Minho flips over his pair of aces.

Jisung stops his sulking to lean forward and gape.

Woojin whistles in awe.

The others do not have time to be impressed. Changbin flips over his cards. A four and seven of clubs.

For an awfully bright moment, Minho thinks that he has won. He’s banked everything on his aces and they’ve pulled through for him! But then his brain supplies the necessary visual data.

Four of clubs. Seven of clubs. Eight of clubs. Ten of clubs. Queen of clubs. 

A flush.

It is like laying eyes on a unicorn.

Changbin, to his credit, barely acknowledges his victory.

Hyunjin slides the towering stack of chips towards Changbin who adds the new stacks to his old stacks like he is arranging dishes on a drying rack or something equally arduous. 

Minho grieves. Two major losses in a row. Everything he’s won, he’s just about lost again. He’s right back where he started at and the loss of progress hurts. He accepts the fact that he is wasting his time at this table. His target isn’t here. There is no point in staying. There is no point in losing all he’s brought with him.

As Hyunjin gathers the cards and prepares to shuffle the deck for another hand, Minho gathers his own chips in preparation to leave the table. Perhaps he’ll join that dice game after all. It’s what he’s the most comfortable with. He’s just about to stand before he is dealt into another hand when a low voice sings out with the warmth of a violin solo:

“Leaving already?”

That voice. Minho knows that voice. Shocked, he looks up.

“I was just about to sit in for some fun.”

Who else stands behind Minho’s stool than the man he has spent the entire night waiting for? The man he dreams of challenging. Of beating. Of  _ succumbing _ to.

Minho can’t take his eyes off of him. The fire in his chest burns a tad bit hotter than mere admiration. “We’re only playing for money, though.” He knows such things won’t interest the man.

Felix sidles up to the stool Chan has vacated. He’s a small guy but the way he carries himself makes him feel as tall as Minho. Taller. He wears a light-colored designer suit. The sleeves and waist of the garment is tailored to hug his slight frame. Gives him shape where he does not have shape. His hairstyle shows off the freckles on his forehead and his thick, downward angled eyebrows. He eases down onto Chan’s old stool with such a commanding presence that Jisung sits up straight like he’s a student who has just been reprimanded by a teacher.

“Shall I deal you in,” Hyunjin asks. He gives the cards one last shuffle.

Felix smiles. Or, rather, he tilts the corner of his mouth upwards the tiniest bit.

“But--” Changbin begins. He makes a motion with his hand towards his own chips and then makes the same motion towards Felix where the green sits empty in front of him.

“I’ll loan him,” Jisung states. He seems more than eager to claw and fight his way back into the center of everyone’s attention. “How much do you need?” He looks over at Felix as if he absolutely  _ needs _ to waste as much money as possible. “75 million? 100 million?”

Minho bites his tongue in disgust. Jisung’s desperation is a little appalling. The way he appeals to Felix is much like the way he’d appealed to Minho back at the bar. 

Felix shifts in his seat to look Jisung in the eye. “And what will you do if I can’t pay you back?”

It’s the question Jisung still can’t create an answer for. “Dude. Just take the money and play.” He jerks his head towards Jeongin. “If we team up, we can force this asshole off the table.”

Felix only moves his eyes to take in Jeongin briefly before he looks back at Jisung and provides a simple, “No.”

“What?” Jisung raises his voice. 

Minho stands up. “I’ll loan you.” After his heavy losses, he cannot provide too much. But he knows Felix. He knows the man cares little about money. Cash is an easily replenishable resource. If the man wants to play, he’ll only do it if he stands to lose something irreplaceable. Minho continues. “I can only supply you with about 45 million won or so.” It’s a laughable offering.

Laughable enough that both Jeongin and Jisung giggle their disapproval.

Yet Felix is intrigued. He stares across the table at Minho. Stares at Minho’s ugly, marred face but recognition does not seem to bloom in his eyes. “What happens if I lose your money?” Felix asks. “What will you do if I fall into your debt?”

“You’ll have to work off what you owe,” Minho says. He is still standing up. From his position, he can look down at everyone’s confused and perhaps even weirded out expressions. Minho focuses on Felix again. “You’ll have to come when I call you. You’ll have to do as I say. If I want something, you go get it. If you act up, I punish you.”

Felix does not answer immediately. He keeps his face so blank that it is almost as if he does not hear what Minho says. Like he hears but does not understand. As if they speak two different languages. And yet… “That’s quite a few demands. Are you asking me to marry you,” Felix jokes.

Minho musters up what conviction he has left. “I’m not asking you anything.” He can’t believe he is about to say such things to the most powerful man he knows! “I’m  _ telling _ you that you’ll be my pet.”

Everyone at the table whirl to face Felix. All of their eyes are wide as if they can’t believe what they’ve just witnessed. As if what they’ve just heard is absolutely impossible.

And yet…

And yet!

“Loan me your money, then,” Felix says. He smiles just enough to show teeth. “And we will see who becomes whose pet.”

Hyunjin moves first. He takes a few of Minho’s poker chip stacks, dismantles and reassembles them, and then slides 45 million won’s worth across the green to Felix.

  
Minho’s knees turn to jelly and he flops back down on his seat in a boneless heap. He looks over at Jisung. He is breathless even though he has done little to warrant such exhaustion. “Now  _ that _ ,” he tells the snarky brat, “is how you make an outside bet.”


	3. No Game, No Life

“Wait,” Jeongin exclaims. Beneath the hot game room lamps, sweat starts to form on his forehead and drips down across his neck but that’s not what’s got him so irritable. “Hold on. Hold on!” He twists in his seat to look first up at Minho and then over at the newcomer. “What the hell just happened?”

Woojin explains, “He bought into the game. It’s not that hard to figure out.” The tiniest smidgen of a sense of humor reveals itself.

That is not what Jeongin means and everyone at the table knows that. That includes Woojin. Jeongin says, “I meant all that crazy ‘you’re my pet’ shit. What the fuck? I thought we were only playing for cash here.”

“We are,” Felix says plainly. His calmness is so unnerving. He is the stillness at the eye of a raging, terrible storm. “Don’t you see?” He waves a hand at the colorful stack of chips that sit in front of him. The chips he’s just borrowed from Minho. When he speaks again, his voice is a low, silken rumble. “All of you should be familiar with the concept of loans. Any bets beyond that are clearly between myself and that man.” Felix flitters a hand in Minho’s direction. The action shifts the cuff of his dress shirt and reveals the massive, gaudy, expensive watch strapped to his pale left wrist.

“That man,” Minho repeats like it’s a curse.  _ That man _ . After everything he and Felix have gone through and all he is reduced to is ‘that man.’ The flippancy annoys Minho and he does not hide the anger that flits across his features. He remembers the days where Felix used to wear a plastic Donald Duck watch! Being snubbed like this hurts. “I have a name.”

“Really?” The guy asks, almost as if he can’t believe it. “What is it?”

Minho can’t even unclench his jaw enough to answer.

“That’s the weird part,” Changbin speaks. He drags a fingernail across the green surface of the table, ruffling the velvety material. “You made a bet where if you lose, you belong to someone or whatever. But… you don’t even  _ know _ him?” The line he draws goes crooked. Slanting at a sharp angle like a plane falling out of the sky. “You agreed to letting a stranger treat you like a dog?”

Felix shrugs. His morality so skewed that he does not even see such a thing as a problem. “He made an interesting offer. I accepted.” And that’s really all it takes for the guy.

That’s all it takes for any gambler. Not just some casual who sits in on a few hands during a vacation to Macau but a _ player _ . Someone so genuinely addicted to gambling that nothing else matters.

Only someone whose mind has gone sideways in such a way would ever agree to such a bet with a smile on their face.

“But if you lose, he can apparently make you do anything he wants,” Changbin points out. All of this clearly bugs him and his incessant questioning is his way of letting everyone at the table experience his discomfort.

Still, Felix has no sense of shame and, thus, cannot be shamed. “That’s the best part. The risk of losing big is what makes a game fun.” He hooks his eyes in Minho’s direction. “Isn’t gambling all about having fun?”

“It’s about making money,” Woojin cuts in under his breath. It’s a surprise to Minho that  _ he _ is the one who is the most unbothered by all of this nonsense. Perhaps Minho’s perception of Woojin has always been off. “It’s about turning a profit.”

Felix either does not hear him or hears him and ignores him. His gaze remains fixed on Minho. His sly smile remains unchanged. Even with the clean, starched suit and designer accessories slapped on top, Felix still looks like the kid he was back in the day. A scrawny, scared little dude in a school uniform two sizes too big for him.

“Shit,” Jeongin grunts out. “45 mil isn’t a lot to work with... Uhh, what’s your name?”

“Felix,” the man introduces himself. At long last, he takes his eyes off of Minho. “Lee Felix.”

“Bond. James Bond.” Woojin mocks him.

Jisung balls his hands into fists. “What a name… You from overseas or something? Who are your parents?”

“No one special,” Felix says smoothly. “Just a business owner.”

Minho knows the truth. He knows who Felix’s father is, what he does and the shady ways in which he does it. ‘Business owner’ is the loosest, most general term the man can be described with but Minho still thinks that’s a bit of a reach.

Felix’s answer is not satisfactory. No one at this table likes mystery. 

“You’re not in the acting business,” Woojin quips, “unless you’re extremely new.”

“And you’re not from a flop idol group. I would know.” Jeongin adds.

Changbin is still visibly uneasy and it would not surprise Minho at all if the reality TV show star is the next to cut his losses and dip out of the game. But instead, he says, “Do you know him, Jisung?”

“I wouldn’t ask him who he was if I did,” snaps Jisung.

Felix isn’t at all bothered by being discussed like he’s not in the room. Like he’s not sitting right next to all of them. “Don’t fret. My father doesn’t do anything particularly interesting.”

_ Except ruin lives _ , Minho wants to blurt out but he keeps his mouth clamped shut. If Felix does not recognize him then he will hold on to his anonymity. He does not want to give himself away just yet. He wants to wait until he’s won and is standing over Felix’s groveling form before he reveals his true intentions.

Jeongin says, “Well, regardless of what your parents do, you must think you’re something special if you believe we won’t clean you out.” He doesn’t even have to motion towards his massive stack of chips to make his point.

Minho’s bankroll is already significantly smaller than the chip stacks of the other players. He lost big during the last few hands so things have shrunk down considerably. Eat into what’s left in order to split with another player and his collection of chips looks even more anorexic.

Felix doesn’t even have half that. However, he sees no need to worry even with the ridiculous discrepancy between his stack of chips and Jisung’s. “The slimmer the odds, the higher the return.” It’s like he is incapable of feeling any worry. “I’ll just do what I came here to do.”

Jeongin and Jisung both narrow their eyes as if finally thinking of Felix as a possible threat. The two of them have been at odds all night. To see them take the same side, even against a common foe, is a tad disturbing. Maybe even an omen.

Felix just may be that great of a foe, Minho decides. Especially if he’s evolved as a player since back then.

“I couldn’t do it,” Changbin says. He even shudders in his seat. “Get someone to loan me some pocket change and if I lose it, they can boss me around? Yikes. I’d be skeptical even if it was a friend but to do that with a  _ stranger _ sounds like a bad time waiting to happen.”

Minho had thought they’d moved past that topic.

“Look at him,” Woojin jerks his head in Felix’s direction, calling everyone’s attention to the man’s confident, smirking face. “He probably  _ wants _ it to be a bad time, if you know what I’m saying.” He waggles his eyebrows like a high schooler making a clever dick joke.

Jeongin butts in. “Let’s not make this weird.”

“Out of everything we’ve talked about tonight,  _ this _ is what you think is weird?” Minho can’t help but shout. Really, all of this dismantling of his plan has taken the enjoyment out of it. His plot for revenge has been overshadowed by thinly veiled sex innuendos and an overexplanation of his intentions. It’s like a joke no longer being funny because the punch line gets spelled out reference by reference.

Felix also decides that now is the time to move the conversation elsewhere. “I don’t see anyone else making loan offers.” He looks right at Jisung. “Decent loan offers, that is.”

Jisung rolls his eyes to the back of his head in frustration. “I’m  _ trying _ to give away all of my dad’s money. How do none of you see that?”

“What is a loan without interest,” asks Felix seriously.

“A gift,” Jisung cuts in.

“No such thing as a gift in this world,” mutters Woojin.

Minho practically growls out, “And gambling isn’t giving.”

“It’s taking,” says Changbin. His words are eerily similar to the exact thought in Minho’s head.

Felix chuckles. Genuinely. His freckles darken with the flush of his cheeks beneath them. “That’s so amusing. Someone I used to know said something similar to that all of the time.” His eyes don’t even dart up in Minho’s direction.

For the second time that night, Minho is reminded of the fact that Felix does not remember him. His ignorance is not even an act. Felix does not  _ know _ him. Does not know why he is even in this club to begin with and why he wants to play against Felix so badly and why he jumped through flaming hoops to make such a ridiculous wager to get the man in the game. It frustrates Minho that Felix does not recognize him. Then again, he thinks, it would be tough--perhaps impossible--for  _ anyone _ from back in the day to recognize him. Not only has it been a few years since his stint in high school but, on top of that, Minho’s face was not wrinkled and reddened from his burns and scars back then. Back when he and Felix knew each other. Back when they may have had something.  _ Of course _ Felix cannot recognize him now.

And perhaps that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the  _ point _ .

Considering their... history.

“Is shit like that even  _ allowed _ ,” Jisung pipes up. “Betting things that aren’t money and all that jazz?”

Hyunjin shuffles the playing cards. To represent the house’s total impartiality, he sure does look extremely amused. “The players who made the bet have consented to the terms,” he lists, “and the dealer has determined that such a bet will not skew the momentum of the game.”

“In other words,” Changbin translates, “the house still gets their cut.”

“And not a won less,” Hyunjin adds with a wide, teeth-revealing smile.

“Damn,” Woojin grunts. “I was going to offer my body or something if I ran out of chips.”

Hyunjin’s smile dims. “Your body has no monetary value to me or to the house.”

Woojin endures the blow to his pride. “Well then.”

Jeongin gets a handle on things. “So you only accepted that super weird bet because, technically, the two of them aren’t substituting cash?” 

Hyunjin nods.

Minho and Felix make eye contact across the table. To Minho, it feels strange having everything discussed on such arbitrary terms but Felix does not seem bothered by everyone peeling back all the layers. In fact, he seems excited. Almost as if he  _ wants _ to lose all of his chips just to see what Minho will make him do. To experience what Minho has in store for him. But Minho knows Felix better than that. The dangerous man won’t lose on purpose. In fact, he is probably already plotting a way to reverse things so that he is at the advantage. If Felix loses games, even on purpose, he wouldn’t be the reason Minho is here tonight. 

“I just like going up against a worthy opponent from time to time,” Felix says after such a long, tense quiet that the context of his declaration is nearly lost. “I can finally go all out.”

Minho gulps. If he does not keep his wits about him, he’ll wind up with the  _ other _ half of his face scarred by burns.

“I think you mean  _ all in _ ,” Jisung jokes.

Hyunjin slaps the deck of playing cards down on the green, getting everyone’s attention again. “Now that we’re all on the same page, let us finally continue.” And he wastes no more time as he plucks cards from the top of the deck and deals them out to the players.

♢♣♡♠

The first time Minho and Felix face each other in a gambling match, Minho is less than a week away from his first day of high school. 

His uniform, cream and black plaid and trimmed in pink, is freshly dry cleaned and neatly pressed. It hangs on the door knob of his bedroom back home, waiting to accompany him through the best three years of his life. Apparently. Supposedly. But until then, he will live almost exclusively in his thrifted leather jacket and biker jeans even though he’s only ridden a motorcycle two or three times in his whole life.

It is very late. Or very early. Two in the morning. 

The fried chicken restaurant is dark on the first floor, several long hours after closing. The chairs rest upside down on the tabletops while the mopped floor dries beneath the hum of the whirling ceiling fans. Upstairs, the private game room is dimly lit and filled to bursting. The air is thick with cigarette smoke and the heady scent of expensive liquor. Jazz music with an abundance of tenor saxophone blares from someone’s cell phone. There’s also the musk of numerous sweaty bodies fitting tightly into a room with a non-functioning AC unit at the tail end of summer.

A storm brews outside. The kind of storm that brings gunshot thunder and heavy rain that floods the side streets with too much water for the drains to handle.

Minho has only just begun to make enough money through his allowance and various odd jobs up and down the street to actually be able to play more than ten or so hands with the neighborhood folks. They welcome him to the table with bright smiles and hearty slaps on his back as he eases into one of the last remaining chairs.

“Hey, everyone,” he chirps out merrily. 

“Minho!” One of the ladies exclaims. “You’re getting so tall.” She pinches his round cheek and pulls on his flesh harder than she probably thinks she does. “And so handsome!” When she lowers her hand, Minho’s cheek is red from her teasing.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he tells her. He’s getting old enough to find the praise a little silly but he’s still young enough to get embarrassed about it and lower his eyes to the worn, scratched surface of the table.

“How old are you now, son,” one of the gentlemen asks.

Being asked so directly, Minho actually forgets and has to count the years in his head. “About to be sixteen.”

“Wow, you’re about to be in high school,” someone else remarks. “Time flies. I remember being in the hospital the day you were born. God, I’m getting old.”

This gets a laugh out of the crowd and Minho watches everyone’s faces. Not a single card has been dealt but he knows the game has already started. If he does not start examining expressions and body language now, there is no way he will win.

The usual gang is here.

There’s the oldest member of the mahjong ladies. It’s a Wednesday night/Thursday morning but that won’t stop her from stunting in her Sunday best. White lace gloves included.

The pot-bellied man from the  _ noraebang _ up the street folds his hairy arms over his chest and bobs his head to a tune the rest of them can’t hear.

One of the veterinary assistants in her bright violet scrubs uses one of the numerous pencils tucked into her bun to scribble down her grocery list.

The counterfeit sneaker hustler recounts his run-in with the police earlier that day. The foreigner who teaches English at the elementary school tells everyone how close he came to being abducted into a religious cult the other week. The nerdy-looking dude who runs the downtown sex toy shop recalls how someone came into his shop right before closing and nearly made it out the door with half a dozen  _ novelty-size _ dildos before he stopped them and got his gargantuan merchandise back. 

One of the cram school teachers rubs his temples and swears that even after upping his melatonin dosage, he can’t get a good night’s rest.

The youngest of the food truck sisters pats him on the back reassuringly, her nails chipped and the skin of her hands dry and cracked after a long night of cooking and cleaning.

They all lead such different lives, Minho notices. They are wildly different ages, from different kinds of families. One is even from another country! Some of them are married. The others live alone. Some of them have jobs where they make just enough to scrape by. Others have jobs where they make  _ a lot _ of money. More than Minho would know what to do with.

Yet here they all are. 

All of them gathered in this one odd, semi-secret place to gamble over games of Texas Hold‘em when all of them should really be at home in bed, resting up for a brand new day.

Minho’s mother comes into the game room with a large tray of nuts, chips, candy and sweets and she can barely sit it on the table before everyone’s hands are greedily scrambling to get first dibs on their favorites. Everyone fights. Everyone laughs.

Minho likes this. All of the people here feel like family to him even though he’s only related to one person in the room by blood.

There are two new faces in the crowd tonight: a salaryman in a threadbare dress shirt with a faded tie done up incorrectly and his fragile-looking, freckled son who appears to be Minho’s age or younger.

Those two fit right in.

Minho’s mother shoos away the several people who aren’t playing. She directs them to the next table over so they won’t be in the way. The nun from the Catholic church deals in the eight who are in the game with an unlit cigar clenched between her slightly yellowed teeth. 

Slowly, the noise of conversation peters out as the players focus on the game.

Minho feels his heart race. It’s far from his first poker game but that doesn’t stop the genuine adrenaline rush that blazes in his veins as he’s dealt his cards. To his left is the shabby salaryman’s son and the veterinarian’s assistant. To his right is the foreigner, the cram school teacher, the food truck sister, the mahjong auntie and the  _ noraebang _ guy. They don’t use poker chips here so they all have wrinkled paper bills and stacks of coins to play with and, for the first time ever, Minho does not have the smallest bankroll at the table.

He thinks he has it made.

♢♣♡♠

Hyunjin deals Minho his second card.

Minho shields them from everyone else with one hand and flips up the card corners with the thumb of his other hand. They make the faintest sound against his skin. A four of diamonds. A ten of hearts.

Of course things won’t be easy. Of course he can’t land himself another pair right off the bat. Yet even if he’d managed such luck, he allowed himself to lose with a pair of aces in the other hand! This is not a good enough hand. It’s not! There are too many variables. Too high a probability that anyone else sitting at the table has something better than he does.

No. 

No. He can’t doubt himself this badly before the first bet is even placed! He is overthinking. He is letting the bad hands that have come before this haunt him and control him. Every hand brings new possibilities, he reminds himself. That is why it is so difficult for a true gambler to walk away from the table. If you are winning big, there is always the chance of winning bigger. If you are losing big, there’s always the chance of turning things around and flipping a profit. A small chance but it is still there. And all a gambler needs is a chance. Minho shoos away his anger. His luck will certainly change. He has won games with shittier hands than this. He has bluffed and bet his way out of worse in the past. The mahjong ladies would not let him stay at the table if he could not manage to keep a grip on his emotions.

Minho takes in a deep breath, holds it until his lungs burn and then lets it out. Slowly enough that the air doesn’t whistle through his nostrils and give his anxiety away. 

There. That’s better.

With a steady mind, he starts from the beginning again. He reacquaints himself with the fundamentals and assesses the facial expressions of his opponents.

Felix looks confident. Emboldened. He sits in his chair with his legs spread wide and one elbow propped on the back rest. He looks like a businessman one firm handshake away from landing a major contract with a big client. All without looking like he doesn’t particularly care. Like he already knows the outcome and is simply waiting.

Jisung cards both hands through his hair. Right hand and then his left hand and then his right hand again. He bounces one of his legs up and down. His forehead is slightly wrinkled. His eyebrows bunch downwards with concentration and he goes out of his way to avoid making direct eye contact with anyone else.

Jeongin appears bored. His fist is propped against his temple and his gaze roams from one end of the table to the other. He watches the movements of his opponent’s fingers. Catalogues the ticks and twitches in their facial muscles. He makes eye contact with Minho but they both quietly decide to ignore that they’ve caught each other in the act. 

Woojin folds his arms across his chest and sits as still as a bronze statue. Although his eyes are aimed at his two face-down cards, there’s a lack of focus to his gaze, as if his head is everywhere except in the game. As if he’s long since mentally checked out and is now leaving his physical movements up to instinct.

Changbin looks stern-faced. Irritable. Everything about this game clearly irks his nerves but he sits in for one more hand regardless. He has loosened a few of his dress shirt buttons and he fans himself with his hand beneath the ridiculous heat of the overhead lamps. When he looks over at Minho and they meet eyes, he offers a nod and a tiny smile like they haven’t been comfortably sitting next to each other all of this time.

“Opening bets,” Hyunjin inquires.

Everyone at the table swings their heads in Felix’s direction.

No one has directly mentioned it but Chan’s steady, consistent bets had somehow set the pace for the table up until now, moving them all upwards in slow but steady increments. With him out of the game, the rhythm will also change drastically. They could either ball low and slow with easy, stress-free calls or be subjected to Jisung-level raises right off the bat. In other words, the next few hands can either be tantalizing or tortuous. Everything rests in Felix’s hands.

As if feeling the weight of everyone’s expectations, Felix chuckles and stops his slouching to lean forward and reach for his chips. He drags his pretty pink tongue across his lips as he ponders what his first move of the game should be. “Such hostile glares. Am I not welcomed?”

“You have this  _ way _ of leaving first impressions,” Jisung boldly states. So quickly and so bluntly that it comes off as a thought he intended to leave in his head.

Felix slowly spins in his seat until he faces the man next to him. “It’s not like I’m a swindler.” 

Jisung finally stops fidgeting in his seat. His hands in his hair still. He even stops bouncing his knee. “No one accused you of being one.” He defends his own honor more than he sticks up for anyone else at the table. 

Jeongin smirks. Then again, he lives for drama. Probably subsists off of it like it is its own special nutrient. “Now now,” he chides. “We don’t want anyone else storming off in a tantrum, do we?”

“No one’s throwing a tantrum,” says Jisung, but he contradicts himself by slamming his fist on the table.

Woojin warily watches everything out of the corner of his eye.

“Place your bet,” Changbin directs. “We don’t have time for more fights. It’s getting late.” 

Felix sighs. “Don’t you think gambling is the most interesting when emotions are involved? When there’s something other than money at stake?” He cuts one of his stack of poker chips in half and then cuts that stack in half before chucking what’s left forward. “2 million,” he announces.

There is an odd sense of relief across the table.

Until… 

“2 million,” Jisung calls. Then he goes back to his stack of chips. “And 6 million more.”

8 million won bets already.

Several hands ago, Minho would have been surprised. Now he is used to Jisung’s unnecessarily large plays. The group has not even seen the flop yet but Jisung wants to be greedy. The center of attention. He will probably make an awful lover with that unquenchable selfishness of his. Everything always has to be about him and what he can do. He will never let anyone else come first.

In more ways than one.

“Call,” Jeongin announces. He throws eight of his 1 million won chips forward.

“Fuck it. Call.” Woojin chucks his own chips to the center of the table.

It’s so eerie how quickly one can contract madness. How fast it spreads. Minho vaguely remembers going over a similar psychology lesson in high school. How most people obey rules simply to adhere to the status quo as opposed to any moral high ground. If one person is bold enough to break the rules, it becomes all the more easier for everyone else to follow behind them and break the rules as well.

“Call,” Changbin says. When he picks up his chips, only Minho pays enough attention to notice how his hand shakes.

Hyunjin works quickly to neatly arrange everyone’s chips into neat stacks before he turns his gaze towards Minho.

“Call,” Minho declares, last but not least. He can’t claim that he is above madness.

Hyunjin raises a hand to push his hair out of his face and behind his ear. Then he presses his thumb against the side of his middle finger until the joint in his right hand pops. His preparations complete, the dealer moves his hand to the deck and, one by one, slides the first three community cards across the green.

The flop gives them a jack of spades. A four of clubs. A seven of diamonds.

Minho has one pair now but fours won’t do him much good. He honestly wishes he could have gotten anything else. A five so that he could attempt to build a straight. More diamonds so that he could try to go for a flush. Anything, and he can’t stress this enough, would be better than a pair of fours.

“Raise,” Felix says with an out-of-place giggle. His smile shows off the points of his canine teeth. “To 14 million won.”

Hyunjin catches the chips Felix flings forward and adds them to their growing stack at the center of the table. 

“14 mil,” says Jisung. “And 5 mil more.” The bet is 19 million won now.

A substantial raise. If Jisung hadn’t been making the same bold moves all evening, it would be easy to assume he’s got a good hand. Minho wonders if Jisung is being reckless because that is simply how he plays or if he is using such established bravery to mask the times he actually  _ does _ have a good hand.

“19 million, then,” Jeongin sighs. He chucks his chips forward with a casual air, as if tossing around so much cash weighs no more on his conscious than flipping through TV channels. 

Minho gulps. He does not know what is wrong with him. He usually enjoys risk so he does not understand why it bothers him now. At the restaurant, he can keep pace with the rest of them. He can call and raise and the only reason why his heart rate increases is because he loves playing so much. But now, at the table with all of these big-money celebs, Minho feels like he is playing poker for the very first time his whole life. Perhaps it is because, tonight, he plays with a clear, specific goal in mind. He has found Felix but now he needs to  _ get _ Felix. If he loses everything in the first hand with him, it means having no ammunition to use later. When it matters. Minho has waited years for this but if he is not smart, he will miss the chance and the very real threat of that happening upsets him. Personally offends him. Makes his palms sweat.

“Goddammit,” Woojin huffs. “None of you know how to be reasonable.”

“We’re betting money on poker. Reason flew out the window the second we sat down.” It’s a surprisingly intelligent comment coming from someone like Jisung.

“Don’t be a bitch,” says Jeongin. There is a dangerous spark in his eyes. “Making small raises isn’t exciting. When gambling, you bet your life. Or so the saying goes.”

Woojin slides one finger over the backs of his cards. He wants to fold. That much is clear. But… “Call,” he says. He moves his hand away from his cards and tosses eleven chips forward. “19 million.”

“Call,” Changbin says after several long seconds of deliberation.

“Call,” Minho says without hesitation. Changbin’s chips have barely stopped sliding across the green before Minho tosses his own forward.

Hyunjin smirks before he wrestles his expression into something cold and impassive. The slip-up intrigues Minho. Their previous dealer was able to remain stone-faced and calm yet Hyunjin sometimes does not even attempt to hide how into the game he is. Minho wonders about him. Wonders what he does when he’s not in this hazy, dark, smoke-filled room flipping cards. Wonders who he is during the daylight hours, without the name badge and the tacky vest. No. Minho wonders who  _ all _ of these men are. This idol, this actor, this conglomerate heir, this pretty boy born with a silver spoon in his mouth. They all live different lives. Under normal circumstances, their paths would probably only cross at some exclusive VIP event or by sheer chance on a red carpet. Yet all of them sit at the poker table, revealing their vulnerabilities yet not revealing anything at all.

Minho still can’t grasp how he’s come to sit beside them all. How he’s managed to walk past security and buy his way into a game with celebrities.

The dealer plucks the fourth community card from the deck and aligns it with the first three. A jack of diamonds sits pretty at the back of the line.

A superb, high card but Minho can’t use it. With his four of diamonds and ten of hearts, he still only has one pair. And a pair of fours at that. There is nothing he can make with this. Everything is too scattered to give him a straight. All he has is a low-hanging pair so now the bluffing starts.

“Check,” Felix holds steady, keeping the bet at 19 million.

But… “Raise.” Jisung gathers his chips and chucks them forward. “To 24 million.”

“I see your 24,” says Jeongin. “And raise you 6 million more.”

30 million won. And coming from Jeongin, it is merely an invitation to a dangerous game.

Woojin almost folds. Minho watches him grab his cards to do so, but Changbin lets out the tiniest cough. Woojin draws his hand back. He grabs his chips, counts them out and tosses them forward. “Call.”

Felix is checking his watch. Jisung and Jeongin are glaring at each other, back to being rivals. Even Hyunjin has all of his attention on the chips in front of him as he arranges them into orderly, 10 million won stacks.

Woojin and Changbin do not look at each other. Minho feels suspicious. He looks at one and then the other but tries to do it quickly enough to not get caught. That  _ could _ have been coincidence. Or it could have been Changbin signaling to Woojin.

“Fold,” Changbin announces. He tosses his cards forward. A three of clubs and a four of spades. He does the smart thing and  _ surrenders _ when he has a shit hand.

Minho does the dumb thing and... “Raise.” He keeps his tone mild. Held back. Minho forces every ounce of excitement out of his voice. He is certain Woojin has a spectacular hand now and some primal, bestial part deep inside of him just wants to see the man second guess himself and give up on it. Even if that means putting his own bankroll at risk. “To 35 million.” He amazes himself. Minho was so terribly against ridiculous raises like this but...

“Any-” Hyunjin’s voice comes out in a croak. He clears his throat and makes a second attempt. “Any other bets?”

Felix has been waiting for the opportunity. “Raise,” he states casually. “39 mil.” He slides four chips forward. One beneath each finger. It is a risky move. He barely has any of Minho’s chips remaining yet that does not seem to slow his pace. Clearly, Felix knows this and he turns his head and locks eyes with Minho as if to make sure he knows too. Coming from anyone else, it would be an obvious trap but Minho  _ knows _ Felix. They’ve played games together before. Minho knows that Felix is a walking contradiction. A soft face coupled with a harsh voice. A frail-looking frame paired with an uncanny sadistic streak. People mistakenly let their guard down around Felix because of his exotic appearance only to be shocked by his cruel words or his actions. His purposeful displays of vulnerability are like predatory flowers luring their prey forward with a sweet scent only to clamp down on an unsuspecting foe.

Minho can’t tell if the man is bluffing or not.

Neither can Jisung. “Check.”

Neither can Jeongin. “Check.”

“Ch-,” Woojin sputters out. 

Changbin coughs. Tiny. Short. Choppy.

“Call,” says Woojin. A pleasant surprise.

Minho stiffens. Once could possibly be an accident. Twice is the type of coincidence that cannot be ignored.

Is Changbin signalling to Woojin? It would be odd. Minho can’t remember the two of them particularly getting along. If they are really teaming up, the only chance they had to discuss it was back during the dealer shift change and, even then, they could not discuss it with everyone else still sitting at the table. With their cell phones held hostage at the door, the only other method of communication they have is beneath the poker table. Their hands are still visible so… foot taps?

Minho shakes his head. He is being paranoid. He is getting ahead of himself and assuming things. He’s going to lose sight of what’s right in front of him if he uses anything but his eyes to see. “Call,” he states, matching Felix’s 39 million won bet with his own. He has a few more chips remaining than Felix does but that does not mean that the upcoming hands will be any easier if he loses this one. He’ll have to go all in just to stand a chance.

With no other bets to be made, Hyunjin flips over the last community card.

Ten of clubs. 

♢♣♡♠

It takes four days and about as many poker games, but Minho learns that the shabby salaryman’s freckled son is named Felix. Yes, he’s younger than Minho. Yes, he’s really from Australia and is only conversational at best in Korean. Yes, his freckles are real. And… yeah,  _ maybe _ he’ll stop hiding them under makeup now.

Minho likes him. In the way that a dog appreciates a new toy. In the way a chef falls for a unique ingredient. 

Minho likes how small Felix’s hands are. Minho likes the high-pitched way Felix laughs with his head thrown all the way back and mouth all the way open. 

Felix is a breath of fresh air. 

He is the first spring flower. A harvest moon sitting low and fat and full in the sky. He is a cool, damp breeze on a hot, dry evening. A mug of steaming coffee to warm the hands on the day of the first snow.

Minho does not mean to gush and get poetic but it is not until he meets Felix and starts to learn more about him that he realizes just how starved for friendship he’s been all of these years. Or, more accurately, he learns of how few friendships he has forged with someone his own age.

The mahjong ladies are kind--if a little invasive with their questions--and slip him a bit of money if they stay at the restaurant particularly late as consolation for not being able to help him clean. The  _ noraebang _ guy teaches him how to count cash, balance a checkbook, how to break out of a chokehold, how to put someone else  _ in _ a chokehold, and how to drive a stick shift. One of the veterinarian assistants shows him her three-ring binders full of manufacturer’s coupons organized by item and total percentage saved and always encourages him to start such a binder of his own. One of the cram school teachers shows him how to smoke a cigarette, buys Minho his first can of beer, gives him study tips for the tests Minho has time for and cheating tips for the tests he doesn’t. The foreigner who teaches English always quizzes him on language vocabulary in return for Minho helping him do things such as keep his trash and recyclables organized according to strict Seoul standards or for making important phone calls for him such as to his landlord or to his bank.

They are all friendly to Minho, yes, and they give him presents on his birthday and mail him a card on Christmas, but they aren’t his friends. Not  _ really _ . Not in the way an only child like Minho needs friends. 

He’s a child and they are adults and that very real boundary can be felt every time he is in the room with them. They have work schedules and have families. None of them are available to ‘hang out’ with him. The majority of them do not understand his slang or get his sense of humor. There are many things they will stop discussing when he walks into the room. There are jokes or barbs he makes that they actually take true offense to and he has to spoil the mood by apologizing profusely to them. They would all rather clam up or turn their shoulders towards him rather than clue him in to any detail of their personal lives and emotional troubles. They preface nearly everything they say to him with a condescending, “When I was your age…” Even the counterfeit hustler, who by all means is the closest to Minho’s age, is still a few years out of college and treats his one-on-one time with Minho like he’s babysitting his annoying little brother.

But with Felix, such boundaries do not exist. They get each other’s jokes. They can speak in half-sentences, partially in English and partially in Korean, and still understand each other. They don’t shy away from talking about their emotions.

They are  _ comfortable _ together.

No pretension. No real hierarchy.

Minho can actually be friends with someone! He can let his guard down. He can believe that he is not a burden or an obstacle or the kid people must be nice to in order to keep their place at the poker table. All of those doubts are out the window. He can relax. He can let Felix _ in _ .

So he and Felix exchange numbers. They text constantly. Days pass and the two of them grow closer. They hang out even when there is no poker to be played.

They sneak into a late night horror movie and then hit up the 24/7 convenience store and stay up even later eating cheap ramen and drinking sugary sweet soda and discussing their favorite moments from the movie in giddy whispers. 

They call each other up at all hours of the night. They talk endlessly. They have fun.

They discover that they watch the same web dramas and read the same magazines and, shockingly, listen to the same music. They both have fixations on super niche YouTube video trends (Minho likes watching people craft and put together elaborately detailed miniatures, Felix likes watching people solve Rubik’s Cubes with their eyes shut or with the puzzle held behind their backs.) Felix admits that he spends every bit of his spare cash on  _ Kamen Rider _ toys and action figures and practices all of the superhero poses and catchphrases in his mirror at home. Minho lets it slip that he plays the acoustic guitar and will often send Felix voice notes of his hastily written three-in-the-morning tunes. Some of them are sad but more and more of them are happy. One of them may even be about love. 

Felix always tells him to audition for an entertainment company or something, urges him to try to be an idol because he  _ has the face for it _ .

Minho always declines. He wants to be more than just his pretty face. He wants to be good at something that he does not need his face to sell.

When school starts up, even though they go to different academies and have different curriculums, they still meet often to help each other with their homework. Felix is the better mathematician while Minho’s best at history and literature. They spend the hours leading up to a night of poker with the rest of the neighborhood folks studying in the empty game room. Then, when Minho’s family get busy closing up the chicken restaurant downstairs for the night, the two boys drop studying and start practicing.

But not for school tests. Or public speaking exercises. Or debates. Or even group presentations. They start practicing how to cheat at the poker table with the adults. They practice special ways of shuffling cards. Special ways of counting them. Anything to even the odds.

It is Felix who comes up with the system of how to align their cards on the table in front of them to show the other which suits they have. Slightly pushed forward for diamonds. A slight tilt to the right for spades. They come up with certain finger tap patterns to indicate whether they have a pair or three of a kind or a straight. Minho is a quick learner and it only takes him two or three game nights to get all of the coded messages memorized and incorporate them into his regular behavior without giving either of them away. He can munch on his bag of pistachio kernels, hold a conversation with the guy who runs the sex toy shop, laugh at a joke one of the food truck sisters lands and still signal to Felix that he’s got a trio of queens in the flop, which keeps Felix from making foolish bets and losing all of the money he’s earned.

Their camaraderie comes easy. It isn’t too much longer before they are spending nearly every second of their lives outside of school with each other. Either at the restaurant or at Minho’s house or in the big green park with the fountain and the view of the river. They borrow each other’s video games. Swap clothes because they somehow wear the same size. They teach each other their preferred coffee orders at the corner shop so that one of them can always bring the other what they like on study nights.

In cozy ways like this, the weeks stretch into months.

Felix and his dad are about to leave Seoul for several days during  _ chuseok _ when Felix hastily whispers into Minho’s ear that he thinks he might like boys.

A month later, there are Halloween decorations all over the restaurant downstairs when Minho pulls Felix aside and works up the courage to admit that he knows he likes both girls  _ and _ boys equally.

There is snow on the ground and there’s a special Christmas party in the restaurant when the two of them sneak a clump of mistletoe into the back alley behind the shop and share their first kiss.

They’ll kiss again come New Year’s. Just without all of the secrecy and pretense.

Minho will look back at all of those moments with fuzzy-tummy fondness. 

Even after what comes next.

♢♣♡♠

Money buys happiness.

If anyone knows that now, it’s Minho.

Winning the lottery has brought a level of happiness to his family that even opening the chicken restaurant couldn’t reach.

Months ago, making a 39 million won bet on anything, whether it was a pair of fours or a royal flush, would have been impossible. That much money would have been everything in Minho’s college fund. It possibly would have ate into his mother’s savings as well. Perhaps it wouldn’t have cleaned them out but it would have made bills very difficult to keep up with unless they dipped into the restaurant’s profits.

Now, though, 39 million won isn’t  _ everything _ . Minho can bet that much--he can _ lose _ that much--yet still have more.

And to men like Felix, Jisung, Jeongin, Woojin and Changbin… 39 million won is  _ nothing _ .

Pocket change, Changbin called it.

Jisung legit wants to throw all he’s got aside, practically  _ give it _ to the poker table, when just a fraction of what he carries in his wallet could change a life. When just a smidgen of his credit limit (if he even has one), could rescue an average family like Minho’s from debt.

“All in,” says Felix. He uses both of his hands to shovel his remaining chips across the green.

Hyunjin quickly gathers up the chips. Separates them by denomination. Stacks them up easily. It only takes him seconds to have everything sorted. “All in,” he repeats, standing back. “The bet is now 49 and a half million won.”

“I’m dead in the water,” Jisung groans. It is almost comical how quickly his bravado leaves his face. “Fold.” He discards his cards. A five of clubs. A six of hearts. One card short of a straight. Minho almost hates it for him.

“Why do you gamble,” Jeongin randomly asks. The look on his face makes it obvious that this is still somehow his way of stirring up unnecessary shit.

“To relieve stress,” says Changbin. He sighs wearily.

“How profound,” Jeongin retorts, not impressed. “Anyone else? Why do you gamble? Why are you here tonight?”

“To have a little bit of fun,” Woojin answers.

“To destroy what my father built.” Jisung says it like he’s reading something biblical.

Minho grits his teeth. Of course the snarky kid tossing millions down on a bad hand would actually believe that he’s making even the slightest of dents in the  _ billions _ his family is worth.

Jeongin smirks. He raises a hand to his face and scratches at his bottom lip. “I gamble because I’m good at it. Call.” He spends a few moments gathering up the correct number of chips and then slides them forward in a neat stack to make Hyunjin’s job even a touch easier.

“Fold,” Woojin says immediately. He flips his cards over. An ace of spades. An eight of diamonds. He, too, had been terrifyingly close to a wicked straight. But almost doesn't count in a game like this.

“What about you,” Changbin asks. He leans over quite some distance to be able to nudge Minho in the shoulder.

Minho remembers that these men with their millions and millions of won, with their sparkling careers, expensive watches, big houses and massive amount of social influence, don’t even know his name. He is nothing in comparison. He is a droplet of water in their already-overflowing buckets. When he leaves tonight, they will not even remember him. He can win big, he can take everything they’ve all got and it will change his life... but they will have so much  _ more _ that the loss won’t even get them upset. Minho lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m just a simple gambling addict.” He grabs his remaining chips by the fistfull. “All in.”

Hyunjin gathers up the chips. Counts them. Stacks them. “53 million.”

“Fold,” Jeongin surrenders. He laughs as if all of this is just some silly, lighthearted joke.

Minho has to remember that everyone else here is playing a game. For him, this is revenge. This is his one good chance to get back at Felix for the mess he made of Minho’s life.

Hyunjin looks over at Minho, pauses, then he turns to look at Felix. Pauses. Neither player backs out. “Showdown,” the dealer calls out, not even hiding his gleaming grin as he waits to see the results.

Minho flips over his cards. His four. His ten.

“Two pairs.” Hyunjin states. He doesn’t need to but he reaches across the green to turn Minho’s cards slightly so that they are more neatly aligned.

“No one asked me why I play,” Felix grouses.

His pouting sends a wave of confusion through the players. It is Woojin, out of everyone, who regains his composure and asks, “Why do you gamble?”

Felix laughs. High-pitched. His head thrown all the way back. “I just have a fucking problem, man.” He flips over his cards.

A jack of hearts. A seven of spades.

“We have a winner.” Hyunjin waves his hand in Felix’s direction. “Full house. Jacks full of sevens.”

♢♣♡♠

All Minho has to do is hear the heavy, clacking footsteps on the sidewalk behind him to know what is about to happen. His fight or flight instinct is triggered before he even hears the first sinister chuckle. But he cannot fight and knows he cannot run. Part of him does not want to. If anything… he’s been waiting for this. Finally, he thinks, the day has come. 

Only awful things can come from this but it fills him with relief that he no longer has to wait in fear. 

They have made their last, desperate, Hail Mary move.

And Minho is glad that it will finally be over. No more startling awake in bed at every loud sound outside. No more constantly glancing over his shoulder when he is out somewhere. No more checking and double checking every door, every window, every stairwell.

This will hurt. But after this, it will all be over.

He is on the way home from school. Snow is still thick on the ground. It is on his boots, on his coat, on his hat. His gloves and scarf barely keep the chill out of his bones.

It’s been six days since Minho last talked to Felix and even longer than that since he’s last physically seen him.

Perhaps the separation is a good thing. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to stop himself if he saw Felix after everything the kid has done.

Minho sighs. Surrenders.

Their friendship is long over but that does not mean Felix is through with him yet.

“What do you want,” he raises his voice. Minho is not surprised when he glances over his shoulder to see four brutish men closely following him down the side street. Even with their uneven bowl cuts and ill-fitting suits, Minho can tell that they are the type who should not be messed with. But still, “What the fuck is your problem?”

This gets the men riled up. “Oh,” one of them steps forward. He wears reflective aviator shades even though the sun is nearly gone. Minho can see his reflection in them. “You think you’re tough or something, kid?”

“You’re the one who thinks you’re tough,” Minho spits back. “Ganging up on a child.”

The largest, roundest man steps forward. “We just do what we get paid to do. Like anybody else in this society.”

Minho scoffs. “And I bet the cash you get from Mr. Lee isn’t even a fraction of what he makes you take off of others.”

One of the men tries to grab Minho’s collar but Minho slaps his hand away. “Fuck off.” He should run but this is a long, empty stretch of suburban road. There is no place to hide even if he can get some distance between them. His only hope would be to make it to the convenience store at the end of the block but he is viscerally aware of what little good that will do. “Do you know how stupid this is? How much money do you think I actually have on me?”

“We know you have next to nothing,” one man tells him. “We aren’t doing this to get money out of you. We’re doing this to get money out of your mother.”

And just him bringing it up stirs the anger in Minho’s chest. It’s not like his mother has the money, either. He knows that debt collectors and loan sharks don’t care about a person’s livelihood. Their only concern is getting their money back. They are blind and deaf to the fact that people who have money wouldn’t need to borrow it. Minho clenches his fists. If there was only one or two of them, perhaps he could have the element of surprise on his side and get in a few good swings before they retaliate but going up against four reduces his odds considerably. He is a man who likes risks, a man who feels in control when he is placed beneath someone else’s control, but shit like this is just unfair.

A game is only fun if all sides involved stand a chance at winning.

“All of you are so pathetic,” he tells them. Because it is the truth and they need to know it.

One of the men swings at him. Faster than he anticipates. He takes the fist to the jaw. Fireworks explode inside his brain as his head whips to the right from the blow.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Minho says. It wasn’t even a hard enough blow to make him taste blood. “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

What really gets him is that they are not strangers to him. He has seen all of these men before but this is the first time he’s seen them all together. The first time that he realizes that they are all in this together. Now they are a wall he cannot climb. An obstacle he has no choice but to succumb to.

One of these men harassed him at the school gates before classes for nearly a week straight. The second and third have caused a ruckus at the restaurant three times now. The fourth beat Minho home one day and used his cheap, pleather dress shoes to stomp out and flatten Minho’s mother’s garden, dig the flowers up by their roots and scatter the petals across the front lawn.

He called it ‘sending a message.’ And that was when Minho first suspected that the other incidents weren’t just random acts of violence.

The message was successfully sent, alright. A message to collect a debt, to be specific. Minho’s mother’s debt. 

And their debtor? None other than Felix’s sorry, lying ass father.

“I told you already that you’ll have your money by Friday,” Minho grunts. It is useless to tell them  _ anything _ at this point but he tries to delay the inevitable regardless. “The bank is doing some bullshit clearing process. The check won’t go through until then.”

The four men advance on him. None of them care. Like dogs or robots, they can only do what they are told.

Minho hates the fact that he is telling the truth! That they really do have the money. That the bank is really holding it hostage several days for no apparent reason. But the truth does not matter in front of a hive of people who have given up on thinking for themselves and only act on the command of their leader. If these good-for-nothings wait three more days, they would have their cash and everyone involved can put this behind them and never cross paths again. But when predators have their prey backed into a corner, they  _ will _ sink their teeth in.

There is no coming back from this.

Minho wants to be angry but all he can be is disappointed. Nothing is going to soften his punishment so he may as well do something to earn it. “Tell Mr. Lee he can go fuck himself,” Minho says with calmness and conviction he does not know he possesses. “And tell Felix that if I ever see him again--”

The rest of his threat is lost. He’s socked across the jaw again. One of the men leans into his face. “Keep quiet, you mouthy little ape!” This time, Minho is hit hard enough to taste blood. To feel it dribble out from between his lips.

Minho stumbles backwards. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and stares down at the red stain smeared across his skin. He hates this. Felix’s father, the ugly rat, somehow has the backbone to play them all like this! The struggling salaryman was just a ploy. An act. A disguise! Felix’s family wasn’t in a crisis. They had money all along. They were the actual freakin’ mob! And this wasn’t the only illegal gambling den they’ve infiltrated with a purposefully messy and meek appearance only to reveal their second heads and wring cash out of the same people who trusted and cared for them and fed them. This is not the first time and it will not be the last. They’ll follow other rumors to some basement game room and cause mayhem there as well. Minho hates it. He hates that everyone at the restaurant allowed that man and his pretty son to take up space in their private gambling world. He hates that they shared meals with them. Hates that they shared so many weeks of their lives with them.

He also hates himself for thinking he had found a friend. And maybe even something more.

“I will not keep quiet.” Minho says the words through gritted, blood-stained teeth. “You’re all pathetic lunatics.”

“Just shut the hell up while we’re still trying to be nice,” the fourth man says. It is the first few words he uttered this entire time.

Minho jerks his head to look at the man. He’s tall and scrawny, but his face is scarred and his right ear is disfigured and chewed like he gets into a lot of violent fights. There is just something about him that automatically clues Minho in to the fact that he is the leader of this little four-man crew. Perhaps it’s the shape of his eyes or the permanent downward slant of his eyebrows but there is something apex predator about him. Something that makes Minho gulp and finally feel a tingle of fear shoot up his spine.

“I don’t want you to be nice,” Minho spits out. “I want you to get this over with. Beat me senseless and then go home to your girlfriends like nothing happened, you heartless bastards.”

All of this over money! All of this pain and fear and property damage for a couple million won! 

If it was a ridiculously high amount, perhaps Minho could understand. If it was a life-changing pile of money, he would  _ get it _ . He would want his money back too. And perhaps he’d employ fear and violence to get it back as well. But his mother’s debt is barely 50 million.

Felix’s dad is doing all of this out of sheer pettiness.

The debt started off as small loans for poker games. Minho’s mother was terrible at bluffing and always wound up on horrible losing streaks. She would borrow money from nearly everyone at the table to stay in the game a few extra hands. A couple thousand won here. A couple thousand there. All in the name of fun. She rarely paid it back but everyone in the neighborhood had gotten complacent, everyone had gotten used to paying off debt with humiliation and chores and IOUs.

No one at the poker table would have guessed that Felix’s father was legitimately keeping tabs of every won he let her borrow, tacking on ludicrous per-day interest. All without telling anyone. All without clueing anyone in to the fact that he was genuinely expecting to be paid back. He would just smile bashfully, reach into his wallet and hand her more cash. Perhaps he’d joke with a “Are you really going to make this back?” or “Am I an ATM now?” Only to sit in at the next game and loan her _ even more _ . 

It was all part of his plot.

And the worst part was that Felix was in on it too. His thin, effeminate appearance was all to garner sympathy. Make people let down their guards. He pretended to expose his vulnerabilities and open his heart just so that Minho wouldn’t put the puzzle pieces together until the very end, when it was far too late to stop the madness.

Minho’s taunting has at last irked the last of the men’s nerves. The tallest one, the leader, steps forward and clamps his ring-adorned fingers down on Minho’s shoulder. Hard. 

They all use the opportunity to encircle him. One on each side.

But they are of little consequence to Minho. His attention is fixed on something a short ways past their brawny shoulders and winter coats.

Parked on the side of the road is a familiar van. Old. Scratched-off paint. A front windshield that  _ stays _ dirty. It is clearly the vehicle the men surrounding Minho drove up in. The sliding door of the van is pulled back. Minho can clearly see Mr. Lee sitting cool and casually in the back seat. Even more importantly, though, is Felix himself. He stands on the sidewalk, leaning against the van. He chews hard on his mouth full of gum and watches Minho with apt fascination, as if he can’t wait to see blood.

One of the men ganging up on Minho shoves him hard, bringing his attention back to their menacing presence.

“Your own mother won’t even recognize you when we’re through with you,” he says, balling his other hand into a tight, intimidating fist.

Minho has gotten into enough fights to have heard that threat before.

But this is the first time ever that he can  _ feel  _ that it is a promise.

♢♣♡♠

Minho stands outside of the  _ King of Hearts _ .

It is just shy of two in the morning and the high-end club is locking its doors for the night.

There is not much of a crowd left. Everyone who is a celeb--everyone who is  _ anyone _ \--have gotten into their private vehicles and left the premises. All of the others, bored with their celebrity spotting, have called their drivers or other rides and have left. The few people who still remain are the lucky ones. The pretty or the rich or the pretty and rich who managed to get past the bouncer and their velvet ropes to get inside. All they do now is huddle in groups over their cell phones, chatting and pointing excitedly at the pictures, videos or even DMs that they’ve managed to receive from the people inside the club.

Nervously, Minho chews hard on his thumbnail and stares up the nearly-empty street in hopes of spotting a passing taxi. At this time of night, there are no buses and no trains. He hopes that he will not have to walk all the way out of downtown just to get home.

“Come on, come on,” he mutters. The stretch of road remains empty. The few cars that pass aren’t taxis. 

The weight of responsibility settles heavy on his shoulders. He has  _ failed _ . He has lost all of the money he has come here with and he was unsuccessful in his attempt to put Lee Felix in his place.

If the man from the  _ noraebang _ saw him now, he’d laugh. “What do I always tell you, Minho,” he would say, eyes shining and cheeks rosy from the alcohol. “The most important thing a gambler can learn is when to get up from the table. You still don’t know how to get up from the table.”

It’s an awful habit that he has to break. He needs to learn to take his victories and run with them. If he was any smarter, he would have taken that 100 million won from that first hand and he would have left. Instead he stayed and stayed and lost 100 million  _ and more _ .

“Minho.” The voice is sweet and alluring.

He turns to face the sound and his breath hitches in his throat when he sees Felix walk out of the club’s front doors. One by one, the brightly-colored neon lights of the club flicker out, leaving the two of them beneath the yellow shine of the streetlamp’s incandescent light. Minho asks, “So you  _ did _ recognize me?”

Felix fishes around in his designer suit pockets until he scrounges up a ring of kings. He finds the one he needs, locks the club’s front doors and pulls on the handles to insure they are shut tight. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this but your face--” He gestures to his own. “--is extremely difficult to forget.”

Minho laughs. “You made me look like this.”

“I most certainly did,” Felix says bravely. “But I can’t believe you still care after all of these years. Get over it, Minho.”

Minho has to bite his own tongue to keep from screaming. Get over it? His face will stay disfigured for life! He will be reminded of it every time he passes a mirror or reflective window. He is beyond pissed off but he forces himself to unclench his fists. Dealing with Felix means taking in and considering every part of him. The sweet side who held his hand under the table so that the adults wouldn’t see. But also the sour side who betrayed the trust Minho’s family had in him. The monstrous side that stood and watched while those brutes made Minho’s face  _ like this _ .

Felix is a man of layers and only the outer ones are pretty.

“I will get you back for this one day,” Minho growls out.

“Hmm? Why?” Felix slots his keys in his pocket and approaches Minho with an excited, child-like grin on his face. “Hasn’t the debt already been repaid? There’s nothing I have for you to get back.”

It’s far from nothing. Minho’s pride as a man. His honor as a member of his family. What’s left of his ego after watching it be scalded and burned and twisted. The last remaining chunks of his heart that he foolishly handed over to the man in front of him all those years ago.

Felix has so many pieces of Minho and there is no way that he does not know it. He leans into Minho’s face. Reaches out a hand to slap it down on Minho’s shoulder. “I’ve grown bored of this place so I’m selling it. But I’m going to find some other place to hole up in.”

Another hovel from which he can steal the money of others, Minho mentally corrects. 

“You’ve... improved. But you still have quite some ways to go before you’ll ever truly impress me. Before you’ll ever even catch a  _ glimpse _ of what it is we’re doing here.” 

Minho swats Felix’s hand off of his shoulder and backs away. Years ago, he would have longed for such close proximity. He would have stayed up late each night, stared at his ceiling and thought long and hard about it. But now… “I will get you back,” he grunts. He’s not foolish enough to believe he’ll dismantle the ‘business’ Felix and his father have, but he’s ambitious enough to think he stands a chance at winning big off of Felix. To think that he can make Felix’s face look even half as bad as his own. “One day… You’ll see. I’ll swindle you like you swindled me. Break your heart like you broke mine. Ruin your face like--”

“You’ve made your point,” Felix interrupts. His smile does not dim. His eyes don’t lose their unhinged sparkle. “I look forward to our next meeting. Just don’t make me wait six years like you did last time. Okay?”

Minho lunges at him but he cannot get close. Or, rather, he gets close but can’t bring himself to actually swing.

Felix sighs and lifts a hand. He drags a thumb across the smooth, unruined side of Minho’s face. For the slightest of moments, it almost looks like he regrets things, but then he subtly changes the angle of his eyebrows and the flatness of his mouth and then his expression melts into an impervious poker face. “Find me again, Minho. And show me what you’re really made out of.” Felix gives him one last pat on the cheek before stepping back and turning away. “Weren’t you always better at dice games?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @[curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/TheSwingbyJHF)


End file.
